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MATTHEW ARNOLD 



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SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



BY 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, PPI.D., AUTHOR OF 
"AMERICAN LITERATURE," " ENGLISH LITER- 
ATURE," AND "CORRECT PRONUNCIATION" 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



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Copyright, 1909, 1913 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



OCT 19 1918 






"^ CONTENTS 

Introduction: page 

Matthew Arnold 5 

Critical Opinions 9 

The Story of Sohrab and Rustum .... 11 

SOHRAB AND RuSTUM. An EpISODE 19 

The Forsaken Merman 59 

Notes , , . , 67 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
Jlerriirs eufflifiil) ^tj^tn 

This series of books will include in complete editions 
those masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted 
for the use of schools and colleges. The editors of the 
several volumes will be chosen for their special qualifications 
in connection with the texts to be issued under their indi- 
vidual supervision, but familiarity with the practical needs 
of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, will char- 
acterize the editing of every book in the series. 

In connection with each text, a critical and historical 
introduction, including a sketch of the life of the author and 
his relation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of 
the work in question chosen from the great body of English 
criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author, will 
be given. Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the 
text as call for special attention will be supplied, but irrel- 
evant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be 
rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



INTRODUCTION 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Matthew Arnold was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, 
the celebrated head-master of Rugby School. He was 
born December 24, 1822, at Laleham, near Staines. In 
1836 he entered Winchester School, but was removed 
the following year to Rugby, where he completed his 
preparation for the university. He maintained a high 
position in the school, presenting in 1840 a prize poem, 
and winning the same year a scholarship at Balliol College, 
Oxford. During his first year at the university he 
obtained the Hertford Scholarship, for proficiency in 
Latin, and later won the Newdigate Prize for English 
Poetry, with a poem entitled "Cromwell." He gradu- 
ated with honors, and in 1845 was elected Fellow of Oriel 
College, just thirty years after the election of his father 
to the same honor. Among his colleagues here were 
R. W. Church, Dean of St. PauFs, John Earle, Professor 
of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, and the poet A. H. Clough. 
His intimacy with Clough grew into the closest friendship, 
which received its final seal in the tender and noble lines 
of Thyrsis, an elegy that for exalted beauty must be 
placed with Milton's Lycidas and Shelley's Adonais. 

Of his life at Oxford one who knew him in those days 
says : " His perfect self-possession, the sallies of his ready 
wit, the humorous turn which he could give to any sub- 
ject that he handled, his gayety, exuberance, versatility, 
audacity, and unfailing command of words, made him 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION 

one of the most popular and successful undergraduates 
that Oxford has ever known." Oxford, as the home of 
his intellectual life, was always dear to him, that "beau- 
tiful city, so venerable, so lovely!" who, " by her ineffable 
charm, keeps ever calling us near to the true goal of all 
of us, to the ideal, to perfection." During his residence 
the university was still under the influence of the famous 
Tractarian Movement, which did so much to purify 
Enghsh religious thought. The leaders of the movement 
were Fellows of Oriel, and the year in which Mr. Arnold 
became Fellow of this college was the year in which Dr. 
Newman seceded to Rome. The influence of these 
events may be traced in all his writing and thinking; in 
apparent contradiction of his radical and analytical 
habit of thought, he maintained through life a conserva- 
tive admiration for the Established Church. 

From 1847 to 1851 Mr. Arnold acted as private secre- 
tary to the late Lord Lansdowne. He married in 1851, 
and the same year was appointed Lay Inspector of Schools, 
a position which he held with honor for nearly thirty-five 
years. Twice he was sent abroad by the government to 
study the school-systems of the Continent, and his various 
reports are among the most valuable contributions to 
educational literature. He labored zealously until the 
end of his life for the reform of the English pubhc schools, 
aiming especially at the elevation of middle-class educa- 
tion, to the defects of which he traced the greater part 
of the moral, social, and political faults of English civili- 
zation. To organize middle-class education as well as 
it is organized in France and Germany was, to his mind, 
the "one thing necessary" for expelling the "Philistines" 
and regenerating English society. 

Mr. Arnold's first appearance in literature was as a 
poet, with the now famous little volume of 1848, entitled 
The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, by A. In 1853 
Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems appeared, and soon 



INTRODUCTION 7 

after he published in his own name a volume of selections 
from the two preceding volumes, including a few new 
poems. The impression produced by his poetry was such 
that in 1857 he was elected to the Professorship of Poetry 
at Oxford, a position which he held for two terms, a 
period of ten years, at the end of which there was general 
regret that the limitation of the statutes did not permit 
a third term. During this period Merope, a tragedy 
after the Greek manner, was published, followed by the 
celebrated Lectures on Translating Homer, and, in 1865, 
by the epoch-making volume of Essays in Criticism. 
This book was a revelation in literature. By it criticism 
was endowed with a new function ; it was elevated to the 
dignity of a creative art; even poetry was made a "criti- 
cism of life." The author defined the new criticism to 
be "a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the 
best that is known and thought in the world," and his 
whole literary work was an illustration of the definition. 
Such a form of criticism was far removed from the mili- 
tant omniscience of the Edinburgh critics, as also from 
the tea-table civility of the Lamb and Leigh Hunt school. 
The lesson of this volume was that criticism must be 
broadened and humanized, that it must be sympathetic, 
tempered with "sweet reasonableness," and, above all, 
truthful, endeavoring with sincerity to "see things as in 
themselves they are." With these essays a new era in 
critical writing began. England now had her own Sainte- 
Beuve. 

With this view of the true function of criticism it is 
not strange, perhaps, that Mr. Arnold's attention was 
often withdrawn from literature and devoted to social 
and religious questions. In 1870 appeared Culture and 
Anarchy, an essay in political and social criticism, pre- 
senting a good illustration of the logical force of that 
peculiar literary style which in his hands was always an 
instrument of marvelous delicacy and power. His theo- 



8 INTRODUCTION 

logical criticism is contained in St. Paul and Protestant- 
ism, published in 1871; Literature and Dogma, 1873; God 
and the Bible, 1875; and Last Essays on Church and Re- 
ligion, 1877. These books aroused bitter controversy. 
His earnest effort to rescue the essential elements of the 
Christian religion from the destruction threatened by 
dogmatic theology in the one direction and materialistic 
science in the other was regarded by many as an attack 
upon Christianity itself. 

Mr. Arnold's other published works are: The Study of 
Celtic Literature, 1868; Friendship's Garland, 1871; Mixed 
Essays and Irish Essays, 1882; Discourses in America, 
1885; Complete Poems, 1876; a volume of Selected Poems 
in the Golden Treasury Series, and a posthumous volume, 
Essays in Criticism, Second Series. A mere enumeration 
of his books shows the breadth and versatility of his 
mind. He was poet, essayi§t, theologian, critic, philoso- 
pher ; yet a remarkable singleness of purpose runs through 
all his work. Whatever the topic, the real theme is 
culture, in its highest sense, — the refinement and har- 
monious development of the intellect and the soul. His 
writing is a constant appeal to the ideal in human nature, 
an insistence upon the moral and spiritual aspects of life 
in contrast with the vulgar material aspects. As a prose 
stylist he is one of the great masters. As a poet only 
two, or three at most, of his contemporaries should be 
named before him. His poetry is a splendid embodiment 
of the profoundest thought and feeling of the period, 
especially of the struggle through which all sensitive 
souls are passing in the recoil before the ''hopeless tangle 
of this age." 

The death of Matthew Arnold occurred suddenly, 
April 15, 1888, bringing a painful shock to the thousands 
who had long been accustomed to regard him as a leader 
and teacher. '' Not only the world of literature, but the 
infinitely larger world of unexpressed thought and feeling 



INTRODUCTION 9 

and unembodied imagination, is sensibly the poorer for 
his loss." His special mission was, as Mr. Stedman ex- 
presses it, ''that of spirituahzing what he deemed an era 
of unparalleled materialism." His most earnest desire 
was to warn all, as he warned his Scholar-Gypsy, to fly 

from 

"This strange disease of modern life, 
With its sick hurry, its divided aims, 
Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts." 

And although his words of warning have often been "on 
men's impious uproar hurled," they have left a deep and 
permanent impress upon the finer consciousness of the age. 

CRITICAL OPINIONS 

ARNOLD AS A POET 

" He is a maker of such exquisite and thoughtful verse 
that it is hard sometimes to question his title to be con- 
sidered a genuine poet. On the other hand, it is likely 
that the very grace and culture and thoughtfulness of 
his style inspire in many the first doubt of his claim to 
the name of poet. Where the art is evident and elabo- 
rate, we are all too apt to assume that it is all art and 
not genius. Mr. Arnold is a sort of miniature Goethe; 
we do not know that his most ardent admirers could de- 
mand a higher praise for him, while it is probable that the 
description will suggest exactly the intellectual peculiari- 
ties which lead so many to deny him a place with the 
really inspired singers of his day." — McCarthy's History 
of Our Own Times. 

"Mr. Arnold belongs to the classical school of poetry, 
regarding the Greeks, with their strength and simpUcity 
of phrase and their perfect sense of form, as his masters. 



10 INTRODUCTION 

To the imaginative power of a true poet he adds a dehcac^ 
and refinement of taste and a purity and severity of 
phrase which uncultivated readers often mistake for 
boldness. Nowhere in his poems do we find those hack- 
neyed commonplaces, decked out with gaudy and un- 
graceful ornament, which pass for poetry with many 
people. His fault rather is that he is too exclusively 
the poet of culture. Many of his verses will always seem 
flat and insipid to those who have not received a classical 
education; while, on the other hand, students of Greek 
literature will be disposed to praise certain of his pieces 
more highly than their intrinsic merit demands. Yet 
it may be doubted whether some of his work as a poet 
will not stand the ordeal of time better than that of any 
contemporary poet, Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning 
excepted. There are few poems which show such a 
refined sense of beauty, such dignity and self-restraint, 
such admirable adaptation of the form to the subject, as 
Mr. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, Tristram and Iseult, and 
the Forsaken Merman." — Nicoll's Landmarks of Eng- 
lish Literature. 

"His shorter meters, used as the framework of songs 
and lyrics, rarely are successful; but through youthful 
familiarity with the Greek choruses he has caught some- 
thing of their irregular beauty. The Strayed Reveler has 
much of this unfettered charm. Arnold is restricted in 
the range of his affections; but that he is one of those 
who can love very loyally the few with whom they do 
enter into sympathy, through consonance of traits or 
experiences, is shown in the emotional poems entitled 
Faded Leaves and Indifference, and in later pieces, which 
display more fluency, Calais Sands and Dover Beach. A 
prosaic manner injures many of his lyrics; at least he 
does not seem clearly to distinguish between the func- 
tions of poetry and of prose. He is ir.ore at ease in long, 



INTRODUCTION 11 

stately, swelling measures, whose graver movement ac- 
cords with a serious and elevated purpose. Judged as 
works of art, Sohrah and Rustum and Balder Dead really 
are majestic poems. Their blank verse, while inde- 
pendent of Tennyson's, is the result, like that of the 
Mort d' Arthur, of its author's Homeric studies; is some- 
what too slow in Balder Dead, and fails of the antique 
simplicity, but is terse, elegant, and always in ' the grand 
manner.' Upon the whole this is a remarkable pro- 
duction; it stands at the front of all experiments in a 
field remote as the northern heavens and almost as 
glacial and clear. . . . Sohrab and Rustujn is a still finer 
poem, because more human and more complete in itself- 
The verse is not so devoid of epic swiftness. The power- 
ful conception of the relations between the two chieftains 
and the slaying of the son by the father are tragical and 
heroic." — Stedman's Victorian Poets. 

THE STORY OF SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

The material for Arnold's Sohrah and Rustum was 
taken from the great Persian epic, the Shah-Namah, or 
Book of Kings. Firdusi, the author of this celebrated 
poem, whose real name was Abu'l Casim Mansur, was 
born about the year 941 a.d. He was learned in all the 
wisdom of the Persian and Arabic literatures, and was 
chosen by Mahmud, the sultan of Ghaznin, after a com- 
petition with seven other poets, to convert the ancient 
legends of Persia into a connected poem. At one of the 
meetings of the court poets he was so successful with an 
improvised verse that the sultan bestowed upon him the 
name Firdusi {Firdus, paradise), saying: "Thou hast 
made my court a paradise." 

Firdusi labored upon his royal task for thirty years, 
and wrote sixty thousand verses; for each verse he was 
to receive a gold piece from the sultan, and it was his 



12 INTRODUCTION 

purpose to devote the whole sum to the building of a 
dike for his native town of Tus. But there were rivals 
and enemies at court, and instead of the sixty thousand 
pieces of gold that had been promised, the sultan was 
persuaded to send him sixty thousand pieces of silver. 
With righteous indignation Firdusi rejected the gift, sent 
back a proud message of scorn, wrote a scathing satire 
against the sultan, and then fled from his dominions. He 

"Who loved the ancient kings, and learned to see 
Their buried shapes in vision one by one, 

And wove their deeds in lovely minstrelsy, 
For all the glory that his name had won 

To Persia, as in exile by the sea." 

At length, after many years of wandering, he returned 
to his native town, a decrepit old man. Time and the 
entreaties of friends had appeased the sultan's anger, 
and he sought to make amends for the wrong done to the 
noble poet. The promised gold he now sejit to him, with 
a robe of honor and a message of welcome and good-will. 
But it was too late: while the camels were bearing the 
treasure in at one gate of the town, the body of Firdusi 
was borne out at another. But the great stone dike for 
the river of Tus was built with the gold, as a monument 
to the poet's memory. 

The Shah-Namah is the national epic of Persia, as the 
Iliad is of Greece, the Nibelungenlied of Germany, and 
the Cid of Spain. Rustum is a hero like Hercules, Achilles, 
and Siegfrid. The finest episode of the poem is the story 
of the fatal contest between Rustum and his son. Some 
of the details of the narrative were changed by Arnold 
in order to bring it within the requirements of modern 
poetic art. The original story runs thus: 

Rustum was hunting near the borders of Turan, and 
while he was sleeping, his faithful horse, Ruksh, was 
stolen by certain young men of Turan. At this Rustum 



INTRODUCTION 13 

was sorely troubled. He followed the hoof-prints to 
the neighboring city of Samengan, and in great wrath 
demanded of the king of that city that his steed be re- 
stored to him, and he vowed that if Ruksh were not 
restored, many of the sons of Turan should pay for him 
with their heads. The king calmed his anger with gra- 
cious promises of assistance, and conducted him to his 
palace. And there Rustum was entertained by the 
beautiful princess Tahmineh, who was already in love 
with him for his great deeds of heroism of which she had 
heard much, and who had connived at the stealing of 
Ruksh in order that she might bring him thither. The 
conclusion of this adventure was a royal wedding at the 
court of Samengan. But the wild spirit of Rustum 
could not be confined at court, and having recovered his 
horse Ruksh, he departed. At parting he gave to his 
young bride an amulet of onyx, saying: "Cherish this 
jewel, and if Heaven cause thee to give birth unto a 
daughter, fasten it within her locks, and it will shield 
her from evil ; but if it be granted unto thee to bring forth 
a son, fasten it upon his arm, that he may wear it like 
his father." 

A remarkable son was born and he was called Sohrab; 
but Tahmineh sent word to Rustum that the child was a 
girl, for she feared that he would take the boy from her; 
wherefore Rustum gave no heed to his child. When 
Sohrab had grown to great strength and courage he de- 
manded the name of his father, and upon learning that 
the far-famed Rustum was his father he resolved to find 
him. His mother would have him keep his lofty parent- 
age a secret, for King Afrasiab was the enemy of Rustum, 
but he boldly proclaimed his birth and his purpose to 
conquer the kingdom of Iran and place his father upon 
the throne. And he had also a secret purpose, which 
was to return with Rustum and conquer the kingdom of 
Turan for himself. 



14 INTRODUCTION 

Now King Afrasiab was much pleased with the young 
hero, for his heart was at once filled with a crafty purpose. 
He prepared an army for Sohrab, and called the leaders to 
him secretly, and said: "Into our hands hath it been 
given to settle the course of the world. For it is known 
unto me that Sohrab is sprung from Rustum the Pehhva, 
but from Rustum must it be hidden who it is that goeth 
out against him, then perad venture he will perish by the 
hands of this young lion, and Iran, devoid of Rustum, 
will fall a prey into my hands. Then will we subdue 
Sohrab also, and all the world will be ours.'' So the 
united Tartar bands set out toward the kingdom of Kai 
Kaoos, and on the way Sohrab performed mighty deeds 
of valor, the fame of which was loudly sounded through 
the land of Iran. The king in terror sent to Rustum, 
asking him to come forth from his retirement and lead 
the army against this new conqueror. But Rustum 
tarried in his coming many days, and when at length he 
came the king was in great wrath, and threatened to put 
him to death. Then Rustum answered him with words 
of scorn: "I am a free man and no slave, and am servant 
alone unto God; and without Rustum Kai Kaoos is as 
nothing. But for me, who called forth Kai Kobad, 
thine eyes had never looked upon this throne. And had 
I desired it, I could have sat upon its seat. But now 
am I weary of thy follies, and I will turn me away from 
Iran, and when this Turk shall have put you under his 
yoke, I shall not learn thereof." Then he strode proudly 
from the king's presence, sprang upon Ruksh, and dis- 
appeared. And now the nobles and chieftains of Iran 
were in still greater terror because of this folly of their 
king, and they went to Rustum and with many prayers 
prevailed with him to return, and the king humbled 
himself and craved pardon from Rustum for his words 
spoken in anger, and bestowed rich gifts upon him. So 
Rustum prepared himself for the contest. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

At length the two armies were face to face by the river 
Oxus. Sohrab, hoping ever to find Rustum, led Hujir, 
an Iranian captive, to a height overlooking the enemy's 
camp, and questioned him about the tents of the leaders; 
but Hujir answered falsely, and so he believed that Rus- 
tum 's tent was not among them. He then challenged 
Kai Kaoos to single combat, and the craven king per- 
suaded Rustum to meet the bold champion. When 
Rustum saw the youth and noble bearing of Sohrab his 
heart went out in compassion toward him, and he be- 
sought him to retire : " young man, the air is warm and 
soft, but the earth is cold.'' And Sohrab, filled with a 
sudden and strange hope, said: "Tell me thy name, that 
my heart may rejoice in thy words, for it seemeth unto 
me that thou art none other than Rustum, the son of 
Zal." But Rustum denied that he was Rustum, for he 
deemed that Sohrab would be the more afraid when he 
beheld such prowess in an Iranian chieftain; and Sohrab 
was made sorrowful by his words. 

And now the combat began. They fought with spears, 
with swords, with arrows, and with clubs. They strove 
until their mail was torn and covered with blood, and 
their horses spent with exhaustion. Rustum thought 
within himself that in all his days he had not met such 
a foe, and finally he was felled by a terrible blow from 
Sohrab's club. The day being then far spent, the cham- 
pions rested for the night. Still troubled in mind, Sohrab 
sought again to know of Haman whether his antagonist 
might not be Rustum; but Haman, mindful of the com- 
mand of his master, Afrasiab, replied that he knew the 
face of Rustum well, for he had often seen him in battle, 
and this man was not Rustum. On the morrow the 
champions again met, and again Sohrab urged peace: 
"For it seemeth unto me that this conflict is impure. 
And if thou wilt listen to my desires, my heart shall 
speak to thee of love. And for this cause I ask thee yet 



16 INTRODUCTION 

again, tell me thy name, neither hide it any longer, for \ 
behold that thou art of noble race. And it would seem 
unto me that thou art Rustum, the chosen one, the son 
of Zal." And Rustum answered: "O hero of tender age, 
we are not come forth to parley, but to combat, and 
mine ears are sealed against thy words of lure." 

Then they joined battle, and from morning until the 
setting of the sun they struggled. At last Sohrab seized 
Rustum by the girdle and threw him to the ground, 
a,nd would have ended his life had not Rustum, bethink- 
ing himself of a wile, cried out to him that in such con- 
tests it was the custom in Iran not to slay an adversary 
Mntil he had been twice overcome. So again they rested, 
and that night Rustum prayed to his god Ormuzd that the 
strength of his earlier years might return. And Ormuzd 
heard his prayer. On the morning of the third day 
Rustum rushed upon Sohrab with renewed might, seized 
him with a terrible grasp, hurled him to the earth, so that 
his back was broken like a reed, and drew forth his sword 
to sever the body. Then Sohrab in agony cried : '' I sped 
not forth for empty glory, but I went out to seek my 
father; for my mother had told me by what tokens I 
should know him, and I perish for longing after him. 
And now have my pains been fruitless, for it hath not 
been given unto me to look upon his face. Yet I say unto 
thee, if thou shouldest become a fish that swimmeth in 
the depths of the ocean, if thou shouldest change into a 
star that is concealed in the farthest heaven, my father 
would draw thee forth from thy hiding-place and avenge 
my death upon thee when he shall learn that the earth 
is become my bed. For my father is Rustum the Peh- 
liva, and it shall be told unto him how that Sohrab, his 
son, perished in the quest after his face." At these 
words Rustum fell to the earth as if stricken by a blow;, 
and he demanded of Sohrab some token of Rustum. 
Then Sohrab charged him to open his armor, and there 



INTRODUCTION 17 

he saw the amulet of onyx upon his arm; and when he 
had seen it he cried out in terrible agony of soul. Then 
Sohrab asked that the army of Turan be permitted to 
return in peace. ''As for me/' he said, "I came like the 
thunder and I vanish like the wind, but perchance it is 
given unto us to meet again above." And then the spirit 
of Sohrab departed. 

Now that Sohrab was dead, Rustum burned his tent, 
his throne, and all his arms and trappings of war. And 
he cried aloud continually, "I that am old have killed 
my son. My heart is sick unto death." The body of 
his son he bore to Seistan, and placed it in a noble tomb. 
And joy never again entered into the heart of Rustum. 
The heavy news was carried to the court of Samengan, 
and the old king tore his garments. And when Tah- 
mineh knew that her son Sohrab was dead, she was 
beside herself with grief. She sent for his steed and his 
armor, and she stroked the steed, pressing his head to 
her breast and pouring her tears upon him. And the 
helmet that Sohrab had worn she kissed many times, 
and his gold and jewels she gave to the poor. A year she 
mourned, and then, borne down to death by her sorrow, 
her spirit departed to her son. 

Note. There is no complete translation of the Sha,h' 
Namah in English. The standard version is the French 
version of Jules Mohl, published by Madame Mohl in 1876. 
There is an English version by Mr. James Atkinson, giving 
an epitome of the poem from a Persian abridgment. Por- 
tions of the poem will be found in Mr. Robinson's Persian 
Poetry for English Readers, and in Miss Zimmem's Heroic 
Tales from Firdusi the Persian. This adaptation has been 
drawn upon for the foregoing narrative. The study of 
Firdusi 's exile has been told in pleasing verse by Edmund W. 
Gosse in his Firdusi in Exile, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

AN EPISODE 

And ^ the first gray of morning filled the east, 
And the fog rose out of the Oxus ^ stream. 
But all the Tartar camp along the stream 
Was hushed, and still the men were plunged in 

sleep; 
Sohrab ^ alone, he slept not; all night long 
He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; 
But when the gray dawn stole into his tent. 
He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword. 
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, 
And '' went abroad into the cold wet fog, 
Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's ^ tent. 
Through the black Tartarl^ents he passed, which 

stood 

Clustering like beehives on the low flat strand 

Of Oxus, where the summer floods overflow 

When the sun melts the snow in high Pamere; ® 

Through the black tents he passed, o'er that low 

strand, 

19 



20 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And to a hillock came, a little back 

From the stream's brink — the spot where first a 

boat, 
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. 
The men of former times had crowned the top 
With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now 
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, 
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. 
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood 
Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent. 
And found thu oid man sleeping on his bed 
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. 
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step 
Was dulled; for he slept light,^ an old man's sleep. 
And he rose quickly on one arm, and said : — 

''Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. 
Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?" 

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said: 
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. 
The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 
Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie 
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. 
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek 
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 21 

'^ In Samarcand/ before the army marched; 
And I will tell thee what my heart desires. 
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan ^ first 
I came among the Tartars and bore arms, 
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, 
At my boy's years, the courage of a man. 
This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on 
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, 
And beat the Persians back on every field, 
I seek ^ one man, one man, and one alone — 
Rustum,^ my father; who I hoped should greet. 
Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, 
His not unworthy, not inglorious son. 
So I long hoped, but him I never find. 
Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. 
Let the two armies rest to-day; but I 
Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords 
To meet me, man to man; if I prevail, 
Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall — 
Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. 
Dim is the rumor of a common fight,^ 
Where host meets host, and many names are sunk; 
But of a single combat famie speaks clear.' ^ 
He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand 



22 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Of the young man in his, and sighed, and said: 

"0 Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! 
Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, 
And share the battle's common chance with us 
Who love thee, but must press forever first, 
In single fight incurring single risk. 
To find a father thou hast never seen? 
That were far best, my son, to stay with us 
Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, 
And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. 
But, if this one desire indeed rules all, / 

To seek out Rustum — seek him not through fight! "' 
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, 
Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! 
But far hence seek him, for he is not here. 
For now it is not as when I was young, 
When Rustum was in front of every fray; 
But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, 
In Seistan,^ with ZaV his father old. 
Whether that ^ his own mighty strength at last 
Feels the abhorred approaches of old age. 
Or in some quarrel with the Persian King. 
There go! — thou wilt not? Yet my heart fore- 
bodes 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 23 

Danger or death awaits thee on this field. 

Fain would I know thee safe and well, though 

lost 
To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace 
To seek thy father, not seek single fights 
In vain; — but who can keep the lion's cub 
From ravening, ^ and who govern Rustum's son? 
Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." 

So said he, and dropped Sohrab's hand, and left 
His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; 
And o'er his chilly limbs his woolen coat 
He passed, and tied his sandals on his feet. 
And threw a white cloak round him, and he took 
In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword; 
And on his head he set his sheepskin cap. 
Black, glossy, curled, the fleece of Kara-Kul; ^ 
And raised the curtain of his tent, and called 
His herald to his side, and went abroad. 

The sun by this had risen, and cleared the fog 
From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed 
Into the open plain; so Haman ^ bade — 
Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled • 

The host, and still was in his lusty prime. 



24 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

From their black tents, long files of horse, they 

streamed; 
'As when some gray November morn the files, 
In marching order spread, of long-necked cranes 
Stream over Casbin ^ and the southern slopes 
Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuarie§. 
Or some frore ^ Caspian reed-bed, southward bound 
>For the warm Persian seaboard — so they streamed. 
The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard. 
First, with black sheepskin caps and with long 

spears; 
Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come 
And Khiva,^ and ferment the milk of mares.^ 
Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns ^ of the south, 
The Tukas, and the lances of Salore, 
And those from Attruck ^ and the Caspian sands; 
Light men and on light steeds, who only drink 
The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 
And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came 
From far, and a more doubtful service owned; ^ 
The tartars of Ferghana,^ from the banks 
Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards 
And close-set skullcaps; and those wilder hordes 
Who roam o'er Kipchak • and the northern waste, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 25 

Kalmucks ^ and unkempt Kuzzaks,^ tribes who 

stray 
Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes/ 
Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere; 
These all filed out from camp into the plain. 
And on the other side the Persians formed; — 
First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seemed. 
The Ilyats of Khorassan; ^ and behind, 
The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, 
Marshaled battalions bright in burnished steel. 
But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, 
Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front. 
And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. 
And when Ferood, w^ho led the Persians, saw 
That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back. 
He took his spear, and to the front he came. 
And checked his ranks, and fixed them where they 

stood. 
And the old Tartar came upon the sand 
Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said : 

^^ Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 
Let there be truce bet-^een the hosts to-day. 
But choose a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man." 



26 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

As, in the country, on a morn in June, 
When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 
A shiver runs through the deep corn ^ for joy — 
So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, 
A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran 
Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. 

\ ^0^ But as a troop of peddlers, from CabooV 
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,^ 
That vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow; 
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass 
Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow, 
Choked by the air,^ and scarce can they themselves 
Slake their parched throats with sugared mul- 
berries — 
In single file they move, and stop their breath. 
For fear they should dislodge the overhanging 

snows — 
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. 

^ " ^ And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 
To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came. 
And Feraburz,^ who ruled- the Persian host 
Second, and was the uncle of the King; 
These came and counseled, and then Gudurz said: 
"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 27 

Yet champion have we none to match this youth. 

He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. 

But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits 
'• And sullen, and has pitched his tents apart. 
^^^Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 

The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. 

Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. 

Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up." 
So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried: 

''Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said! 

Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." 

He spake: and Peran-Wisa turned, and strode 

Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. 

But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, 
x'V^And crossed the camp which lay behind, and 
reached, 

Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. 

Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, 

Just pitched; the high pavilion in the midst 

Was Rustum's, and his men lay camped around. 

And Gudurz entered Rustum's tent, and found 

Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still 

The table stood before him, charged with food — 

A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread, 



28 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And dark-green melons; and there Rustum sate * 
*^p Listless, and held a falcon ^ on his wrist, 

And played with it; but Gudurz came and stood 
Before him, and he looked, and saw him stand. 
And with a cry sprang up and dropped the bird. 
And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:^ 

"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight. 
What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink." 

But Gudurz stood in the tent door, and said : 
" Not now ! a time will come to eat and drink, 
But not to-day; to-day has other needs. 
c~> The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; 
For from the Tartars is a challenge brought 
To pick a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight their champion — and thou know'st his 

name — 
Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. 
Rustum, like thy might is this young man's! 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart; 
And he is young, and Iran's chiefs ^ are old, 
Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. 
Come down and help us, Ruscum, or we lose!" 

He spoke ; but Rustum answered with a smile ; 
'*Go to! ^ if Iran's chiefs are old, then I 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 29 

Am older; if the young are weak, the King 
Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo/ 
Himself is young, and honors younger men, 
And lets the aged molder to their graves. 
Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young — 
The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. 
For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? 
For would that I myself had such a son. 
And not that one slight helpless girl ^ I have — 
A son so famed, so brave, to send to war. 
And I to tarry with the snow-haired Zal,^ 
My father, whom the robber Afghans vex. 
And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, 
And he has none to guard his weak old age. 
There would I go, and hang my armor up. 
And with my great name fenc-? that weak old man, 
And spend the goodly treasures I have got, * 

And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame. 
And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 
And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no 
more." 
He spoke, and smiled, and Gudurz made reply. 
"What then, Rustum, will men say to this, 
When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks 



'V 



30 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 
Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say; 
^Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, 
And shuns to peril it with younger men.' " 

And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply: 
^'0 Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? 
Thou knowest better words than this to say. 
What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, 
Valiant or craven, young or old to me? 
Are not they mortal, am not I myself? 
But who for men of naught would do great deeds? 
Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! 
But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms; 
Let not men say of Rustum, he was matched 
In single fight with any mortal man." 
^ He spoke, and frowned; and Gudurz turned, and 

ran 
Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy — 
Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. 
But Rustum strode to his tent door, and called 
His followers in, and bade them bring his arms. 
And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose 
Were plain, and on his shield was no device. 
Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 31 

And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume 
Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume. 
So armed, he issued forth; and Ruksh,^ his horse, 
Followed him like a faithful hound at heel — 
Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the 

earth, 
The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once 
Did in Bokhara by the river find 
A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 
And reared him; a bright bay, with lofty crest, 
Dight ^ with a saddlecloth of broidered green 
Crusted with gold, and on the ground were worked 
All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. 
So followed, Rustum left his tents, and crossed 
The camp, and to the Persian host appeared. 
And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts 
Hailed; but the Tartars knew not who he was. 
And dear as the wet diver to the eyes 
Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 
By sandy Bahrein,^ in the Persian Gulf, 
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night. 
Having made up his tale ^ of precious pearls, 
Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands — 
So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 



32 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, 
And Sohrab armed in Haman's tent, and came. 
And as afield the reapers cut a swath 
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 
And on each side are squares of standing corn. 
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare — 
So on each side were squares of men, with spears 
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast 
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 
Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. 

As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, 
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 
Who with numb blackened fingers makes her fire — 
At cockcrow, on a starlit winter's morn, 
When the frost flowers the whitened window- 
panes — 
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts 
Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed 
The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar 
Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 
All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused 
His spirited air, and wondered who he was. 
For very young he seemed, tenderly reared; 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 33 

Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and 

straight. 
Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 
Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf. 
By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound — 
So slender Sohrab seemed, so softly reared. 
And a deep pity entered Rustum's soul 
flC> As he beheld him coming; and he stood, 

And beckoned to him with his hand, and said: 

"0 thou young man, the air of heaven is soft, 
And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold! 
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. 
Behold me! I am vast, and clad in iron. 
And tried;' and I have stood on many a field 
Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe — 
Never was that field lost, or that foe saved .^ 
Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? 
Be governed! quit the Tartar host, and come 
To Iran, and be as my son to me. 
And fight beneath my banner till 1 die! 
There are no youths in Iran brave as thou.'' 

So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice, 
The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw 
His giant figure planted on the sand, 



34 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Sole, like some single tower, which a chief 
Hath builded on the waste in former years 
Against the robbers; and he saw that head, 
Streaked with its first gray hairs; — hope filled 

his soul, 
And he ran forward and embraced his knees. 
And clasped his hand within his own, and said : 

"Oh, by thy father's head! by thine own soul! 
Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?'' 

But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth. 
And turned away, and spake to his own soul : 

"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean! 
False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. 
For if I now confess this thing he asks, 
And hide it not, but say: 'Rustum is here!' 
He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, 
But he will find some pretext not to fight, 
And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts, 
A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. 
And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 
In Samarcand, he will arise and cry: 
'I challenged once, when the two armies camped 
Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords 
To cope with me in single fight; but they 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 35 

w' Shrank, only Rustum dared ; then he and I 
Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.* 
So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud ; 
Then were ^ the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." 

And then he turned, and sternly spake aloud : 
''Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 
Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast called 
By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt or yield! 
Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? 
Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! 
/^ For well I know, that did great Rustum stand 
Before thy face this day, and were revealed, 
There would be then no talk of fighting more. 
But being what I am, I tell thee this — 
Do thou record it in thine inmost soul : 
Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 
Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds 
Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer floods, 
Oxus in summer wash them all away." 

He spoke ; and Sohrab answered, on his feet : 
<V^"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so! 
I am no girl, to be made pale by words. 
Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand 
Here on this field, there were no fighting then. 



36 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. 
Begin! thou art more vast, more dread ^ than I, 
And thou art proved, I know, and I am young. 
But yet success sways with the breath of heaven. 
And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure 
Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. 
. For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 
ju^ Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate. 
Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. 
And whether it will heave us up to land. 
Or whether it will roll us out to sea. 
Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 
We know not, and no search will make us know; 
\ Only the event will teach us in its hour." 

He spoke, and Rustum answered not, but hurled 
His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came, 
(V As on some partridge in the corn a hawk, 
That long has towered in the airy clouds. 
Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come. 
And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear 
Hissed, and went quivering down into the sand, 
Which it sent flying wide; — then Sohrab threw 
In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield; sharp 
rang, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 37 

The iron plates rang sharp, but turned the spear. 
And Rustum seized his club, which none but he 
Could wield; an unlopped ^ trunk it was, and huge, 
0' Still rough — like those which men in treeless 

plains 
To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, 
Hyphasis ^ or Hydaspes, when, high up 
By their dark springs,^ the wind in winter time 
Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,^ 
And strewn the channels with torn boughs — so 

huge 
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck 
One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, 
Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came 
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's 

hand. 
A^ And Rustum followed his own blow, and fell 

To his knees, and with his fingers clutched the 

sand; 
And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, 
And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay 
Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; 
But he looked on, and smiled, nor bared his sword. 
But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said: 



38 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will 
float 
Upon the summer floods, and not my bones. 
But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; 
^ Ot) No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul, 
' Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so 
Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul. 
Boy as I am, I have seen battles too ! — 
Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, 
And heard their hollow roar of dying men; 
But never was my heart thus touched before. 
Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the 

heart? 
thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven! 
Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, 
And make a truce, and sit upon this sand. 
And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, 
And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. 
There are enough foes in the Persian host. 
Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; 
Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 
Mayst fight; fight them, when they confront th); 

spear ! 
But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!" 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 39 

He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen, 
And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club 
y^^ He left to lie, but had regained his spear. 

Whose fiery point now in his mailed right hand 
Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn star,* 
The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soiled 
His stately crest, and dimmed his glittering arms. 
His breast heaved, his lips foamed, and twice his 

voice 
Was choked with rage; at last these words broke 

way: 
''Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! 
Curled minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! 
Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! 
Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 
With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to 

dance; 
But on the Oxus sands, and in the dance 
Of battle, and with me, who make no play 
Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand. 
Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! 
Remember all thy valor; try thy feints 
And cunning! all the pity I had is gone; 
Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts 



40 SOmtAB AND RUSTUM 

With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girFs 

wiles." 
- He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts, 
And he too drew his sword; at once they rushed 
Together, as two eagles on one prey 
Come rushing down together from the clouds. 
One from the east, one from the west ; their shields 
Dashed with a clang together, and a din 
Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters 
Make often in the forest's heart at morn, 
Of hewing axes, crashing trees — such blows 
Rustum and Sohrab on each other hailed. 
And you would say that sun and stars took part 
In that unnatural ^ conflict; for a cloud 
Grew suddenly in heaven, and darked the sun 
Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose 
Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, 
And in a sandy whirlwind wrapped the pair. 
In gloom they twain were wrapped, and they 

alone; 
For both the on-looking hosts on either hand 
Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure. 
And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. 
But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 41 

And laboring breath; first Rustum struck the 

shield 
Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear 
Rent the tough plates, but failed to reach the skin, 
And Rustum plucked it back with angry groan. 
Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm, 
Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest 
He shore ^ away, and that proud horsehair plume. 
Never till now defiled, sank to the dust; 
And Rustum bowed his head; but then the gloom 
Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, 
And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the 

horse. 
Who stood at hand, uttered a dreadful cry; — 
No horse's cry was that, most hke the roar 
Of some pained desert lion, who all day 
Hath trailed the hunter's javelin in his side. 
And comes at night to die upon the sand. 
The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, 
And Oxus curdled as it crossed his stream. 
But Sohrab heard, and quailed not, but rushed on, 
And struck again; and again Rustum bowed 
His head; but this time all the blade, like glass. 
Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, 



42 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And in the hand the hilt remained alone. 
Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes 
Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 
And shouted: ^'Rustum!" — Sohrab heard that 

shout. 
And shrank amazed : back he recoiled one step. 
And scanned with blinking eyes the advancing 

form; 
And then he stood bewildered; and he dropped 
His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 
He reeled, and, staggering back, sank to the ground; 
And then the gloom dispersed, and ^ the wind fell, 
And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all 
The cloud ; and the two armies saw the pair — 
Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet. 
And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. 
Then, with a bitter smile, Rustum began : 
''Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill 
A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse. 
And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent; 
Or else that the great Rustum would come down 
Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move 
His heart to take a gift, and let thee go; 
And then that all the Tartar host would praise 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 43 

Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 
To glad thy father in his weak old age. 
Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! 
Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be 
Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." 

And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied: 
'^ Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. 
Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! 
No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. 
For were I matched with ten such men as thee, 
And I were that which till to-day I was, 
They should be lying here, I standing there. 
But that beloved name unnerved my arm — 
That name, and something, I confess, in thee, 
Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield 
Fall; and tmrispear transfixed an unarmed foe. 
And now thou boastest, and insult 'st my fate. 
But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear: 
The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! 
My father, whom I seek through all the world, 
He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!" 
-^ As when some hunter in the spring hath found 
A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, 
Upon the craggy isle of a hill lake, 



44 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, 
And followed her to find her where she fell 
Far off; — anon her mate comes winging back 
From hunting, and a great way off descries 
His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks 
His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps 
Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 
Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she 
Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, 
In some far stony gorge out of his ken, 
A heap of fluttering feathers — never more 
Shall the lake glass her,^ flying over it; 
Never the black and dripping precipices 
Echo her stormy scream as she sails by — 
As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, 
So Rustum knew not his own loss, mtt stood 
Over his dying son, and knew him not. 

But, with a cold incredulous voice he said: 
'^What prate is this of fathers and revenge? 
The mighty Rustum never had a son." 

And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied : 
"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 
Surely the news will one day reach his ear, 
Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 45 

Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; 
And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap 
To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 
Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! 
What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? 
Oh, could I live till I that grief had seen! 
Yet him I pity not so much, but her, 
My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 
With that old king, her father, who grows gray 
With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. 
Her most I pity, who no more will see 
j^ Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp. 

With spoils and honor, when the war is done. 
But a dark rumor will be bruited up,^ 
From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; 
And then will that defenseless woman learn 
That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, 
But that in battle with a nameless foe, 
By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." 

He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, 
Thinking of her he left, and his own death. 
He spoke; but Rustum listened, plunged in thought. 
Nor did he yet believe it was his son 
Who spoke, although he called back names he knew; 



• 



46 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

For he had had sure tidings that the babe, 
Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, 
Had been a puny girl, no boy at all — 
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 
Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. 
And so he deemed that either Sohrab took. 
By a false boast, the style ^ of Rustum' s son; 
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. 
So deemed he : yet he listened, plunged in thought; 
And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide 
Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore 
At the full moon; tears gathered in his eyes; 
For he remembered his own early youth. 
And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn. 
The shepherd from his mountain lodge descries 
A far, bright city, smitten ^ by the sun. 
Through many rolling clouds — so Rustum saw 
His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; 
And that old king,^ her father, who loved well 
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child 
With joy; and all the pleasant life they led. 
They three, in that long-distant summer time — 
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt 
^d bound, and morn on those delightful hills 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 47 

In Ader-baijan. And he saw that youth, 
Of age and looks to be ^ his own dear son, 
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, 
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe 
Of an unskillful gardener has been cut. 
Mowing the garden grassplots near its bed, 
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, 
On the mown, dying grass — so Sohrab lay, 
Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 
And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said : 

''0 Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son 
Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have 

loved! 
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men 
Have told thee false — thou art not Rustum's son 
For Rustum had no son; one child he had — 
But one — a girl; who with her mother now 
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us — 
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." 

But Sohrab answered him in wrath; for now 
The anguish of the deep-fixed spear grew fierce, 
And he desired to draw forth the steel, 
And let the blood flow free, and so to die — 
But first he would convince his stubborn foe; 



48 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And, rising sternly on one arm, he said: 

"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men. 
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. 
I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bear 
The seal ^ which Rustum to my mother gave, 
That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 

He spoke; and all the blood leftRustum's cheeks, 
And his knees tottered, and he smote his hand 
Against his breast, his heavily mailed hand, 
That ^ the hard iron corselet clanked aloud; 
And to his heart he pressed the other hand, 
And in a hollow voice he spake, and said : 

"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! 
If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son.'' 

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed 
His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 
And showed a sign in faint vermilion points 
Pricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, 
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, 
An emperor's gift — at early morn he paints. 
And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 
Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands — 
So delicately pricked the sign appeared 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 49 

On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. 
It was that griffin/ which of old reared Zal, 
Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 
A helpless babe, among the mountain rocks; 
Him that kind creature found and reared, and 

loved — 
Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. 
And Sohrab bared that image on his arm. 
And himself scanned it long with mournful eyes, 
And then he touched it with his hand, and said: 

^'How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign 
Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?" 
He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and 

stood 
Speechless; and then he uttered one sharp cry: 
^'0 boy — thy father!" — and his voice choked 

there. 
And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes. 
And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. 
But Sohrab crawled to where he lay, and cast 
His arms about his neck, and kissed his lips. 
And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, 
Trying to call him back to life; and life 
Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, 



50 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And they stood wide with horror; and he seized 
In both his hands the dust which lay around, 
And threw it on his head, and smirched his hair, — 
His hair, and face, and beard, and ghttering arms; 
And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast. 
And his sobs choked him; and he clutched his 

sword, 
To draw it, and forever let life out. 
But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, 
And with a soothing voice he spake, and said: 

^^ Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day 
The doom which at my birth was written down 
In heaven, and thou art heaven's unconscious 

hand. 
Surely my heart cried out that it was thou. 
When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, 
I know it! but fate trod those promptings down 
Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged 
The strife, and hurled me on my father's spear. 
But let us speak no more of this! I find 
My father ; let me feel that I have found ! 
Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take 
My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, 
And wash them with thy tears, and say: ' My son! ' 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 51 

Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of life. 
And swift; for like the lightning to this field 
I came, and like the wind I go away — 
Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. 
But it was writ in heaven that this should be." 

So said he, and his voice released the heart 
Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth ; he cast 
His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud. 
And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts. 
When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the 

horse, 
With his head bowing to the ground and mane 
Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe 
First to the one then to the other moved 
His head, as if inquiring what their grief 
Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate 

eyes 
The big warm tears rolled down, and caked the 

sand. 
But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said: 
^^ Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, Ruksh, thy 

feet 
Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, 
Or ere they brought thy master to this field! " 



52 SOHRAB AND RUSTVM 

But Sohrab looked upon the horse, and said: 
^^Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days, 
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed. 
My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, 
That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 
Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! 
Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; 
For thou hast gone where I shall never go, 
And snuffed the breezes of my father's home. 
And thou hast trod the sand of Seistan, 
And seen the River of Helmund,^ and the Lake 
Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself 
Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food. 
Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine. 
And said: '0 Ruksh! bear Rustum well,' — but I 
Have never known my grandsire's furrowed face. 
Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, 
Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream; 
But lodged among my father's foes, and seen 
Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, ' 
Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, 
And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk 
The desert rivers, Moorghab ^ and Tejend, 
Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTVM 53 

The northern Sir ; ^ and this great Oxus stream, 
The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." 

Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewailed: 
^'Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! 
Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt ^ 
Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!' 

But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied: 
^^ Desire not that, my father! thou must live. 
For some are born to do great deeds, and live. 
As some are born to be obscured, and die. 
Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 
And reap a second glory in thine age; 
Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. 
But come ! thou seest this great host of men 
Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! 
Let me entreat for them; what have they done? 
They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star. 
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. 
But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, 
But carry me with thee to Seistan, 
And place me on a bed, and mom-n for me, 
Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends. 
And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, 
And heap a stately mound above my bones, 



54 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And plant a far-seen pillar over all. 
That so the passing horseman on the waste 
May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: 
'Sohrab, the mighty Riistum's son, lies there, 
Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!' 
And I be not forgotten in my grave." 

And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied: 
'Tear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, 
So shall it' be: for I will burn my tents. 
And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, 
And carry thee away to Seistan, 
And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 
With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. 
And I will lay thee in that lovely earth. 
And heap a stately mound above thy bones, 
And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 
And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 
And I will spare thy host ; yea, let them go ! 
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! 
What should I do with slaying any more? 
For would that all that I have ever slain 
Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes. 
And they who were called champions in their time, 
And through whose death I won that fame I have — 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 55 

And I were nothing but a common man, 
A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, 
So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! 
Or rather would that I, even I myself, 
Might now be lying on this bloody sand. 
Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, 
Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; 
And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 
And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; 
And say: '0 son, I weep thee not too sore, 
For willingly, I know, thou niet'st thine end! * 
But now in blood and battles was my youth, 
And full of blood and battles is my age. 
And I shall never end this hfe of blood." 

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied: 
'^A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! 
But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, 
Not yet ! but thou shalt have it on that day 
When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship. 
Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, 
Returning home over the salt blue sea. 
From laying thy dear master in his grave." 

And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said: 
''Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! 



56 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure." 

He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took 
The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased 
His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood 
Came welling from the open gash, and life 
Flowed with the stream; — all down his cold white 

side 
The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soiled, 
Like the soiled tissue of white violets 
Left, freshly gathered, on their native bank. 
By children whom their nurses call with haste 
Indoors from the sun's eye; his head drooped low, 
His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay — ■ 
White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps. 
Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame. 
Convulsed him back to life, he opened them. 
And fixed them feebly on his father's face; 
Till now all strength was ebbed, and from his 

limbs 
Unwillingly the spirit fled away, 
Regretting the warm mansion which it left. 
And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. 

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; 
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 57 

Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. 
''Xs those black granite pillars, once high-reared 
By Jemshid ^ in Persepolis, to bear 
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps 
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side — 
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. 

And night came down over the solemn waste, 
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, 
And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night, 
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, 
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires 
Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 
Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; 
The Persians took it on the open sands 
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; 
And Rustum and his son were left alone. 

But the majestic river floated on,^ 
Out of the mist and hum of that low land, 
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, 
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste. 
Under the solitary moon; — he flowed 
Right for the polar star, past Orgunje,^ 
Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin 



58 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, 

And spUt his currents; that for many a league 

The shorn and parceled Oxus strains along 

Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — 

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had 

In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, 

A foiled circuitous wanderer — till at last 

The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide 

His luminous home of waters opens, bright 

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed 

stars 
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. 



THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

Come, dear children, let us away; 
Down and away below! 
Now my brothers call from the bay, 
Now the great winds shoreward blow, 
Now the salt tides seaward flow; 
Now the wild white horses^ play. 
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 
Children dear, let us away! 
This way, this way! 

Call her once before you go, — 
Call once yet ! 

In a voice that v she will know, — 
' ' Margaret ! Margaret ! ' ' 
Children's voices should be dear 
(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 
Children's voices, wild with pain, — 
Surely she will come again ! 
Call her once, and come away; 
This way, this way ! 

59 



60 THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

''Mother dear, we cannot stay! 

The wild white horses foam and fret.'' 

Margaret! Margaret! 

Come, dear children, come away down: 

Call no more! 

One last look at the white- walled town, 

And the little gray church on the windy 

shore; 
Then come down! 

She will not come, though you call all day; 
Come away, come away ! 

Children dear, was it yesterday 

We heard the sweet bells over the bay, — 

In the caverns where we lay, 

Through the surf and through the swell, 

The far-off sound of a silver bell? 

Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep. 

Where the winds are all asleep; 

Where the spent lights quiver and gleam. 

Where the salt weed sways in the stream, 

Where the sea-beasts; ranged all round. 

Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; 



THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 61 

Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, 
Dry their mail and bask in the brine; 
Where great whales come sailing by, 
Sail and sail, with unshut eye, 
Round the world for ever and aye? 
When did music come this way? 
Children dear, was it yesterday? 

Children dear, was it yesterday 

(Call yet once) that she went away? 

Once she sate with you and me, 

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, 

And the youngest sate on her knee. 

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it 

well, 
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. 
She sighed, she looked up through the clear 

green sea; 
She said, ^'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray 
In the little gray church on the shore to-day. 
Twill be Easter-time in the world — ah me ! 
And I lose my poor soul,^ merman! here with 

thee." 
I said, ''Go up; dear heart, through the waves; 



62 THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea- 
caves!" 

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the 
bay. 

Children dear, was it yesterday? 

Children dear, were we long alone? 

^'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 

Long prayers," I said, "in the world they 

say; 
Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf 

in the bay. 
We went up the beach, by the sandy down 
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled 

town; 
Through the narrow paved streets, where all 

was still. 
To the little gray church on the windy hill. 
From the church came a murmur of folk at 

their prayers. 
But we stood without in the cold blowing 

airs. 
We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn 

with rains, 



THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 63 

And we gazed up the aisle through the small 

leaded panes. 
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: 
*^ Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here! 
Dear heart,'' I said, ''we are long alone; 
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan/' 
But, ah! she gave me never a look. 
For her eyes were sealed to the Holy Book. 
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. 
Come away, children, call no more! 
Come away, come down, call no more! 

Down, down, down! 

Down to the depths of the sea! 

She sits at her wheel in the humming town, 

Singing most joyfully. 

Hark what she sings: ''0 joy, joy, 

For the humming street, and the child with its 

toy! 
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy 

well; 
For the wheel where I spun. 
And the blessed light of the sun!" 
And so she sings her fill, 



64 THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

Singing most joyfully, 

Till the spindle drops from her hand, 

And the whizzing wheel stands still. 

She steals to the window, and looks at the 

sand. 
And over the sand at the sea; 
And her eyes are set in a stare; 
And anon there breaks a sigh, 
And anon there drops a tear, 
From a sorrow-clouded eye. 
And a heart sorrow-laden, 
A long, long sigh. 
For the cold strange eyes of a little mer= 

maiden, 
And the gleam of her golden hair. 

Come away, away, children; 
Come, children, come down! 
The hoarse wind blows colder; 
Lights shine in the town. 
She will start from her slumber 
When gusts shake the door: 
She will hear the winds howlinp- 
Will hear the waves roar. 



THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 65 

We shall see, while above us 
The waves roar and whirl, 
A ceiling of amber, 
A pavement of pearl. 
Singing, ''Here came a mortal, 
But faithless was she ! 
And alone dwell forever 
The kings of the sea." 

But, children, at midnight,^ 
When soft the winds blow, 
When clear falls the moonlight. 
When the spring-tides ^ are low; 
When sweet airs come seaward 
From heaths starred with broom,^ 
And high rocks throw mildly 
On the blanched sands a gloom; 
Up the still, glistening beaches. 
Up the creeks we will hie. 
Over banks of bright seaweed 
The ebb-tide leaves dry. 
We will gaze, from the sand-hills, 
At the white sleeping town; 
At the church on the hill-side, 



66 THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

And then come back down, 

Singing, ''There dwells a loved one, 

But cruel is she! 

She left lonely forever 

The kings of the sea." 



NOTES 

SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

19, 1. And: This form of opening indicates the episodical 
character of the poem. 

2; Oxus: The classical name of the great river now called 
Amoo Daria. It was the scene of many important events in 
ancient history. Consult Classical Dictionary and Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica. 

3. Sohrab (so'rdb) : Note the effect of the repetition. 

4. Suggest similar repetitions of and in the Scriptures. 

5. Peran-Wisa {pe'rdn we'sd): The commander of King 
Afrasiab's {af-rd' si-ah) army. 

6. Pamere (pd-meer'): Usually written Pamir; an elevated 
steppe or plateau in which the Oxus has its source, — a part 
of the great Himalayan plateau. 

20, 1. He slept light: So Shakespeare says, in Romeo and 
Juliet, II, 3: 

" Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, 
And where care lodges sleep will never lie." 

21, 1. Samarcand (sdm-ar-kdnd') : The ancient Marcanda, 
destroyed by Alexander; later the great conqueror Timur's 
capital. See map of Asia. 

2. Ader-baijan {dd'er-bVydn)', A northern province of 
Persia. 

3. I seek . . . son: What effect is produced by the repe- 
titions in this sentence? 

4. Rustum {rods' turn): This celebrated Persian hero is 

67 



68 NOTES 

supposed to have lived about 600 years B.C. BQs romantic 
life, a mixture of fact and fiction, is the favorite theme of 
Persian poets. Some believe that he was a commander 
under Cyrus the Great. The name is variously spelled 
Roostam, Roostem, Rostem, Roustem, etc. 
5. Common fight: General fight, in which all are engaged. 

22, 1. Seistan (se-is-tdn'): Also Sistan. A province and 
lake in Afghanistan. 

2. Zal (zdl): He was distinguished in Persian legend as a 
hero, but mainly as the father of Rustum. 

3. Whether that . . . Or in: Either because ... Or be- 
cause of. 

23, 1. Ravening: Obtaining prey by violence, like animals. 
So in. Ezekiel xxii, 25: "like a roaring lion ravening the 
prey." 

2. Kara-kul (ka'ra-kool): A famous pasturage for sheep in 
Bokhara. 

3. Haman (hd'man): In the original poem he aids in de- 
ceiving Sohrab as to his father's presence in the Persian 
army. 

24, 1. Casbin: Also Kasvin; a city of Persia, once the seat 
of royalty. Near it, to the north, are the Elburz (eVboorz) 
mountains. 

2. Frore: Frozen, frosty. A, S., froren, from freosan, to 
freeze. 

3. Khiva (ke'vd): An important province, or khanate, of 
Turkestan. Its capital is Khiva. 

4. Milk of mares: This intoxicating liquor, used by the 
Tartars, is called koumiss. The name is now applied to a 
somewhat similar preparation of milk for invalids. 

5. Toorkmims: The Toorkmuns, or Turkomans, are Tar- 
tars inhabiting the steppe east of the Caspian and south of 
the Oxus. 

6. Attruck: Also Atrak; a river emptying into the Caspian 
Sea. 

7. A more doubtful service owned : They did not acknowl- 



NOTES 69 

edge obedience to King Afrasiab, and therefore formed an 
uncertain part of the army. 

8. Ferghana (fer-ghd'na): A province of Turkestan, in 
which are the head-waters of the river Jaxartes, (jax-ar'teez), 
the modern Sihon, or Syr Daria. 

9. Kipchak: A name once apphed to a large region border- 
ing the Caspian Sea on the north. 

25, 1. Kahnucks: Or Calmucks; a nomadic race, inhabiting 
various parts of the Russian and Chinese empires. They 
live in " conical felt tents, set up in regular lines like the 
streets of a town. Their wealth consists entirely in small 
but high-spirited horses, excellent cattle, and broad-tailed, 
rough- fleeced sheep." 

2. Kuzzaks {kooz'zaks). The modem Cossacks, a wander- 
ing Russian tribe. 

3. Kirghizzes (klr'ghi-zeez): A fierce Mongolian tribe from 
the high mountainous regions. 

4. Khorassan (ko-rds-san'): "The land of the Sun"; a 
northeastern province of Persia. Ilyats (il'i-dts), a word 
meaning tribes, is applied collectively to the Tartar tribes 
of this province. 

26, 1. Com: Used in the European sense of grain, as wheat, 
barley, etc. 

2. Cabool (kd-booV) : Also Cabul and Kabul; the capital of 
Afghanistan. 

3. Indian Caucasus: The same as the Hindoo Koosh 
mountains, between Afghanistan and Turkestan. 

4. Choked by the air: Explain the conditions that produce 
this effect. Suggest any Alpine experiences or adventures 
that justify the description contained in this fine simile, 
page 26, lines 7 to 16. 

5. Gudurz {goo' door z) ; Zoarrah {zo-dr'rdh) ; Feraburz (Je'rd- 
boorz). 

28, 1. Sate: Obsolete form of sat. 

2. Falcon: Falconry, or the sport of using falcons and 
hawks in hunting, has been practiced in the East from the 



70 NOTES 

most ancient times. It was known in China 2000 years 
B.C. According to Layard, *' a falconer, bearing a hawk on 
his wrist " was found represented in the bas-rehefs of Nin- 
eveh. 

3. Those who are familiar with Homer's Iliad will find 
many suggestive similarities in Arnold's poem, notably in 
the simple and direct language, in the fine similes, and in 
some of the incidents. This appeal to Rustum recalls the 
appeal to the " implacable Achilles " in the Iliad, book ix. 
The poem is an evidence of Arnold's splendid classical cul- 
ture and of his ability to make English verses truly Homeric 
in quality. 

4. Iran's chiefs: Persia is called Iran by the Persians them- 
selves. According to the Shah-Namah, there were two 
brothers, Iran and Tur, from whom sprang the Iranians and 
Turanians. 

5. Go to: An old phrase of exhortation, often contemptu- 
ous, common in the Scriptures and in Shakespeare, as in 
Twelfth Night, IV, 1: "Go to, go to, thou art a foohsh 
fellow." 

29, 1. Kai Khosroo {kl kos-roo'): The Persian name of 
Cyrus the Great. He was the third of the Kaianian dynasty, 
the founder of which, Kai Kobad, according to legend, was 
placed upon the throne by Rustum. In the Rubaiyai of 
Omar Khayyam (Fitzgerald's translation) we have: 

" What have we to do 
With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru? 
Let Zal and Rustum thunder as they will." 

Arnold has transferred the scene of the poem from the reign 
of Kai Kaoos, as given in the Shah-Namah, to the more 
glorious reign of Kai Khosroo. 

2. Helpless girl: He had been deceived by the mother. 
See Introduction, and line 23, page 45 to line 5, page 46. 

3. Snow-haired Zal: He was born with white hair, and this 



NOTES 71 

being regarded as an ill omen by the father, he was exposed 
upon the mountains to perish; but was miraculously pre- 
served by a prodigious bird and received again by his father. 
See lines 2-6, page 49. 

31, 1. Ruksh (rooksh): This horse plays an important part 
in the story of Rustum (see Introduction). Recall other 
famous horses of mythical and historical heroes, as the " swift- 
footed " Xanthus of Achilles, Alexander's Bucephalus, the 
Cid's Babieca, etc. 

2. Dight: Decked, arrayed. From A. S. dihtan, to prepare, 
dress. So in Milton's L' Allegro: 

" The clouds in thousand liveries dight." 

3. Bahrein (Jod'ran)'. An island in the Persian Gulf, fa- 
mous for its pearl fisheries. 

4. Tale: Number or reckoning. From A. S. talian to 
tell, count. The Israelites in Egypt had to make their 
" tale of bricks." 

33, 1, Tried: The same as proved, line 3, page 36. 
2. The antithesis here is strengthened by alliteration. 

35, 1. Were: Would be. 

36, 1. Dread: Inspiring awe, or fear. So "dread sover- 
eign." 

37, 1. Unlopped: Not cut and trimmed with an axe. The 
Cyclops, Polyphemus, used a pine tree as a walking-stick 
(Virgil's Mneid, bk. iii). The weapon of Hercules was a club.) 

2. Hyphasis {hi-fa'sis) or Hydaspes (hi-das'peez): Rivers of 
Northern India, tributaries of the Indus, the modern Beas 
and Jhelum. 

3. Dark springs: Why " dark springs "? 

4. Wrack: Wreck, ruin; A, S. wrcec. 

39, 1. Autumn star: Sirius, the dog-star, is probably 
referred to, an object of much superstition in both ancient 
and modem times. 

40, 1, Unnatural: It was against nature that father and 
son should be thus fighting. 



72 NOTES 

41, 1. Shore: Obsolete preterite of shear, allowable only 
in poetry. From A. S. sceran, to cut; scarf, scrip, share, 
shore, shred, and many other words indicating something cut 
off, are from this root. 

42, 1. What is the effect of the repetition of and? Com- 
pare Matthew vii, 27. 

44, 1. Glass her: Reflect her image, like a mirror. 

45, 1. Bruited up: Circulated, noised abroad. 

46, 1, The style: The title, or name. 

2. Smitten: Note the appropriateness of the word, to 
describe the sudden effect of the sun's rays shooting forth 
from behind a cloud. 

3. That old king: The king of Samengan. See Introduction. 

47, 1. Of age and looks to be: Of such age and looks that 
he might be. 

48, 1. The seal: In the original it is an onyx amulet, which 
he was to wear upon his arm. Why did Arnold change the 
token of recognition? 

2. That: So that. 

49, 1. Griflan: The marvelous vulture (like the Roc in the 
Arabian Nights) that rescued and nurtured Zal when cast 
away by his father. 

52, 1. Helmimd Qiel'moond): A river of Afghanistan, 
flowing through the province of Seistan. Near it is Lake 
Zirrah {zir'rdh), now little more than a marsh. Wide pos- 
sessions here had been given to Rustum by the Persian mon- 
archs. 

2. Moorghab, Tejend {te-ijend'), Kohik (ko-hik'): Rivers of 
Turkestan that are gradually lost in the desert. 

53, 1. Northern Sir: The Syr Daria, ancient Jaxartes. 

2. Grains of yellow silt: Mud or fine soil carried along by 
the water and finally deposited. 

57, 1. Jemshid {jem'sheed): An ancient king of Persia, 
who is supposed to have added to the splendors of Persep- 
oUs, the ruins of which are now called Chilminar, the " Forty 
Pillars." 1 



NOTES 73 

2. But the majestic river floated on: The author begins and 
ends the poem with the picture of the smooth-flowing river, 
thus giving it a beautiful artistic setting. The subHme 
tranquillity of nature is undisturbed by human suffering and 
tragedy. Nothing of its kind in modern . poetry is finer 
than this conclusion. 

3. Orgunje (or'goon-je): A village on the Oxus, below 
Khiva. 

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

59. The mermaid myth is common to the Celtic people of 
the British Isles, and under various names is found in the folk 
lore of Germany and Scandinavia. In Cornwall the mermen 
and mermaids are called " merry men " and " merry maids." 
The belief in the frequent union of these sea-creatures with 
mortals was so well estabUshed in the Middle Ages that great 
families sometimes traced their ancestry to such unions and 
placed the figure of a mermaid on their coats of arms. The 
theme is frequently employed in Danish ballads, as in Agnete 
and the Merman, a direct antecedent of The Forsaken Merman. 
Arnold uses it again, but not so happily, in The Neckan. 
Variations of the theme are found in Fouque's Undine, the 
story of Melusina, in S. Baring-Gould's Myths of the Middle 
Ages, Grimm's The Golden Mermaid, and Hans Christian 
Andersen's Little Sea-Maid. 

This graceful romantic poem, made from the material of 
pure and tender imagination, is an exception to the general 
austerity and classic formahsm of Arnold's verse; and its 
melody, though not perfect, is more free and sweet than his 
singing voice could usually command. In spite of occasional 
dissonance and an over-elaborate simplicity, "it is a great 
poem," says Professor Saintsbury, " one by itself, tne which 
finds and keeps its own place in the foreordained gallery or 
museum, with which every true lover of poetry is provided, 
though he inherits it by degrees. No one, I suppose, will 



74' NOTES 

deny its pathos; I should be sorry for any one who fails to 
perceive its beauty." 

59, 1. Wild white horses: This fancy forms the substance 
of Kipling's poem, the White Horses. 

61, 1. Lose my poor soul: Naturally the church regarded 
these supposed alliances with superstitious horror, as much 
worse than ordinary paganism, and pronounced its ban upon 
them accordingly. 

65, 1. At midnight, etc.: In this passage the poet makes a 
charming adaptation of the beUef that evil spirits of all kinds 
were permitted to wander on earth between midnight and 
cock-crow. The ghost, in Hamlet, appeared " jump at the 
dead hour " of midnight. These dwellers in darkness may visit 
the sleeping town, but " the church on the hill-side " indicates 
their immutable exile from among the children of light. 

2. Spring tides: The highest tides, occurring at new and 
full moon, opposed to neap tides. When the moon is full, the 
high spring tide will be at moon-rise and the low at midnight. 

3. Broom: A shrubby plant with bright yellow flowers that 
grows in profusion, in connection with the pretty bell-heather, 
on the great heaths of southwest England; the same as the 
French plante gen^t, whence Plantagenet, the broom being the 
badge of this royal family. 



TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR 
STUDY 



FORM 

1. Relate the story briefly, giving the events of the action, 
without explanations from the introduction. 

2. Is the story complete in itself? Why does the author 
call it an "Episode"? 

3. Explain the abrupt beginning of the poem. 

4. Is action the chief element of the poem, or description, 
or reflection? • 

5. What is the metre of the poem? 

6. Secure a clear definition of an epic poer^ -^nd note how 
far this poem meets the requirements of the definition. 

7. Compare it with other short epic poems, such as Tenny- 
son's Idylls of the King. 

8. There are many Homeric features in the poem, the 
single combat, the supernatural accompaniments, Rustum 
camping apart in resentful mood, the similes, and the long 
speeches. Compare with the Iliad in these details. 

9. By what beautiful devise does the poet give definite 
limits of time to the action? 

10. Could the poem be put into dramatic form and pre- 
sented upon the stage? What would be gained and lost by 
such change of form? 

STYLE 

11. Note the character of the language used, simple, 
clear, forceful words in straightforward expression. Compare 
with Paradise Lost in this respect. 

12. From what source did Matthew Arnold derive this 

75 



76 TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 

severe simplicity of style? Is it characteristic of his other 
works? 

13. Make a careful study of the Homeric similes. Does 
each one present a vivid picture? Do they add to the interest 
of the poem, or do they detract from the interest by inter- 
rupting the progress of the action? Are they too numerous? 

14. You will note the frequent repetition of phrases. 
What is the poet's purpose in these repetitions? 

15. Study the peculiar repetition of and, justifying each 
instance if possible. 

16. Select two or three passages, outside the similes, that 
show a skilful use of a few words to present a complete picture. 

17. The author says, in his essay "On Translating Homer," 
that epic poetry must be written in the "grand style." Is 
this poem in the "grand style"? Look up this matter in 
the essay. 

MORAL CONTENT 

18. To what extent is the love of fame a fundamental 
element in the action of the poem? 

19. What was Sohrab's motive for fighting? What was 
Rustum's motive? 

20. Where does the responsibiUty for the final tragedy lie? 

21. The ideal hero of an epic poem must possess noble 
quaUties. Is Sohrab such a hero? Is Rustum? Define 
to yourself clearly the personal quaHties of each. 

22. Find at the beginning of the poem a hint of what is 
to occur, a key-note that sounds the sad ending. 

23. Rustum's dramatic exclamation "Rustum" marks 
the climax of the action. Did he intend to reveal himself 
by this cry? What was its effect upon Sohrab? 

24. At what point is the pathos of the last scene deepest? 

25. Are the last fines, descriptive of the river, intended 
to be symbolical of human life? 

26. What is the effect ot the story upon you as you finish 
it? 




LORD BYRON 



MnrXiVB lEn^lfHly Uitxtn 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



BY 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, PH. D., AUTHOR OF 
"AMERICAN LITERATURE," "ENGLISH LITERA- 
TURE."- AND "CORRECT PRONUNCIATION." 




CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



Copyright, IQ17, 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



OCT 19 1918 

©aA5039'-;2 






^ 



CONTENTS 

Introduction: page 

George Gordon Byron 5 

Critical Appreciation 9 

The Prisoner of Chillon 11 

Bibliography 15 

The Prisoner op Chillon 17 

Notes 37 

Topics and Questions 44 



INTRODUCTION 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 

The story of Byron's life is an unpleasant story to write, 
to read, or to contemplate. It was a life devoted to selfish 
gratifications, yet was a miserably unhappy life. ''So 
sad and dark a story," says Macaulay, "is scarcely to be 
found in any work of fiction." His life was destitute of 
the noble purposes and lofty enthusiasms with which his 
contemporaries, Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth, were 
inspired. His indisputable genius, which flared upon the 
literary world with meteoric splendor, was attended by 
an evil influence that fascinated while it repelled. His 
whole nature was poisoned at the roots. But there was 
one redeeming act that in the judgment of posterity covers 
a multitude of his sins. Though he hved ignobly, he died 
nobly, lighting with sincerity for the cause of liberty, 
which he had celebrated with much shallow pretense in 
his poetry. As Landor expressed it: — 

BjTon was not all Byron; one small part 
Bore the impression of a human heart. 

George Gordon Byron, sixth Lord Byron, was born in 
London, January 22, 1788. He came from a remote and 
proud Hneage; the name appears in the Domesday Book. 
His heritage, however, was unfortunate, his immediate 
ancestors being more distinguished for evil than for good. 
Newstead Abbey, the family seat, was inherited by the 
poet from a great uncle who was known as "the wicked 

5 



5 INTRODUCTION 

Lord Byron." The poet's father, a captain of the guards, 
called ''mad Jack," married Catherine Gordon, a Scotch 
heiress squandered her fortune, and fled from his creditors 
to the Continent. In Lara the poet alludes to this mis- 
fortune: — 

"Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, 
Lord of himself, that heritage of woe." 

The mother was proud and passionate, treating her child 
alternately with tenderness and violence. In one of her 
fits of rage she threw the fire-poker at him, and at another 
time called him " a lame brat." This lameness with which 
he was born, his towering pride, his poverty, and a state 
of health which required him to live for days together on 
biscuits and soda-water, were sources of misery through 
all his life— the principal items in his ''heritage of woe. 

Byron was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, 
Cambridge. At both places he was more celebrated for 
athletics than for scholarship; he became an expert m 
boxing, fencing, swimming, and even played cricket, 
hiring a boy to do the running for him. Said the master 
of Harrow "I soon found that a wild mountain colt had 
been committed to my care." He was always "idle, m 
mischief, or at play"; but he read voraciously at times, 
chiefly history, and novels "by the thousand.^ He at- 
tended the university at intervals, as inclination moved 
him, during three years, and somehow obtained an M. A. 

^"^ While at Cambridge he published, in 1807, Hours of 
Idleness, a volume of juvenile poems of meager merit 
which was treated with lofty contempt by the Edinburgh 
Review. The sting of this criticism was painful to the 
proud young poet. He says that he immediately drank 
three bottles of claret and began a reply. What he ac- 
tually did was to take from his desk a satire on contem- 
porary poets, just written, add lines upon the critics, and 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 7 

publish it as English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. It was 
an imitation of Pope, without Pope's fine artistic finish. 
The injustice of many passages was afterward acknowl- 
edged by Byron. The success of the poem was immediate 
and sensational. 

In 1809 Byron took his seat in the House of Lords, and 
thereupon set out for the Continent, where he spent two 
years in travel. He returned with the first two cantos of 
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the publication of which 
established his fame as a poet. ''I awoke one morning,'' 
he says, ''and found myself famous." The poem was a 
new romantic sensation with which the public was highly 
delighted. The hero was quickly identified with the poet 
himself. This success was followed by The Giaour, The 
Corsair, Lara, and other similar tales, written with re- 
markable rapidity, and all with essentially the same 
hero — himself. Byron was now caught up in a whirlwind 
of public adoration. "Byronism spread over the land 
like a fever." His wild, strange poetry, spiced with wick- 
edness, became a fashionable craze. He was the "curled 
darling" of society. Fashionable young men posed as 
Childe Harolds and Laras, with open shirt collars, pre- 
tending to be men of loneliness and mystery, feeding their 
souls with melancholy. 

The shams of this poetic craze were reahzed when 
Byron married Miss Milbanke and was separated from 
her within a year, under circumstances that have never 
been fully explained. The marriage was an unfit one in 
every respect; the wife was a strait-laced Puritan in her 
morals, the husband was an unprincipled aristocrat, con- 
temptuous of ordinary moral restraints. The event was 
a volcanic sensation. Society reacted fiercely against 
Byron, making him out ten times as bad as he really was, 
and driving him into exile. In 1816 he left England, never 
to return. Assuming the poem to be sincere, the finest 
part of his nature was expressed in the poignant lyric, 



8 INTRODUCTION 

Fare thee Well, addressed to Lady Byron on his departure, 
written, it is said, with tears that still mark the manu- 
script. 

The remaining eight years of Byron's life were spent 
mainly in Italy, often in the companionship of Shelley. 
His career during these years was a strange alternation 
of dissipation and devotion to poetry. He wrote profusely, 
adding two cantos to Childe Harold, which contain his 
best work; several dramas, Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, 
and others, which with the exception of Manfred represent 
his poorest work; and his final poem, Don Juan, which 
is the fullest presentation of his personal character and 
poetic genius. 

Byron's life was always one of reckless adventure, 
generally aimed at selfish purposes. In his last adventure 
he proved that, although he had generally been a sham 
hero, he was capable of being a real hero. He joined the 
Greeks in their struggle for liberty, contributed a large 
sum of money, and for nearly a year served as one of the 
leaders of the army in the field. Stricken with fever, he 
died at Missolonghi, in 1824, and was buried in Hucknall 
Church, near Newstead Abbey. 

Byron's character, a singular compound of contradic- 
tory qualities, is still a matter of controversy. "Angel or 
demon?" the Frenchman Lamartine asked. "No geniune 
good thought was ever revealed by him to mankind," 
said Carlyle. He was extravagantly generous. To a 
needy college friend he gave £1000, when he himself was 
deeply in debt, and slipped a five-hundred-pound note 
into a breakfast cup for a child to whom he had stood as 
godfather. His excessive pride was often ludicrous in its 
manifestations. He envied Beau Brummel, the society 
fop, and was jealous of Shakespeare's fame. He professed 
to scorn society and the world, but was a slave and martyr 
to public opinion. Yet at times he was inspired by beauti- 
ful and loft}^ sentiments. Matthew Arnold finds in him 



CRITICAL APPRECIATION 9 

a "splendid and puissant personality," and Swinburne 
praises his "excellencies of sincerity and strength." But 
few can now read his poetry, which is all autobiography, 
without questioning his sincerity and inclining to accept, as 
the most charitable disposition of the matter, Macaulay's 
comment: "How far the character in which he exhibited 
himself was genuine, and how far theatrical, would prob- 
ably have puzzled himself to say." 

CRITICAL APPRECIATION 

The question of Byron's rank and quality as a poet is 
one of singular disagreement among critics. The exag- 
gerations of praise and censure with which the man was 
treated have been repeated in discussing the merits and 
faults of the poet. Arnold ranks him above Shelley, 
Keats, and Coleridge, and as the equal of Wordsworth. 
"These two, Wordsworth and Byron, stand, it seems to 
me, first and preeminent in actual performance, a glorious 
pair, among the English poets of this century." On the 
other hand, Theodore Watts-Dunton, with equal au- 
thority says: "His rank in the courts of universal criticism 
still remains, and will always remain, below that of his 
five great contemporaries." Criticism has not yet reached 
a final verdict, but there can be no doubt that Byron's 
glory as a poet is fading before the rising glory of Shelley 
and Keats. 

The first impression of Byron's poetry is that of its 
brilliancy, its dash and vigor of expression, its opulence 
of fancy, prodigality of wit, tenderness, eloquence, sub- 
limity — and profanity — that captivate the reader and 
blind his critical perceptions. But a careful rereading 
of this poetry reveals its underlying defects — tawdry art, 
tricks to please the public, repetitions of theme and senti- 
ment, tiresome egotisms, melodramatic posturings. The 
tinsel is now worn off the fine garments of his swaggering 



10 INTRODUCTION 

pirates and desperate adventurers. "In their necklace 
of Oriental pearls have been discovered beads of glass." 

Vigor, impetuosity, and a facile power of expression 
tend to conceal the limitations upon his greatness. As a 
matter of fact, says Taine, "no such great poet has had 
so narrow an imagination; he could not metamorphose 
himself into another. They are his own sorrows, his own 
revolts, his own travels, which, hardly transformed and 
modified, he introduces into his verses. He does not 
invent, he observes; he does not create, he transcribes." 

In respect to the technical qualities of his poetry, 
Byron was as reckless as he was in respect to the moral 
qualities. He was an impulsive and clever improviser, 
rather than a meditating artist. He wrote with impetuous 
haste, and seldom revised or corrected. ''Lara I wrote 
while undressing after coming home from balls and mas- 
querades," he says. Naturally his work is full of crude 
and careless expression that shows an indifference to 
finished art. He would even sacrifice grammar for a 
hasty rhyme. The quality of all his poetry is essentially 
lyrical, being always an effusion of personal feeling, but 
he seldom composed a perfect lyric. His finest poetry is 
descriptive, and his finest descriptions are in Childe Harold, 
vivid and vital in their appeal because they are saturated 
with personal emotion. 

Byron was detached from England in his poetry as 
he was in his life. The greater part of his poetry, and all 
of the best of it, was written on the Continent and upon 
themes drawn from continental scenery, history, and 
romance. When he wrote of English matters, he wrote 
not with sympathy but with satiric bitterness. The 
finest impulses of his genius were stirred by the scenes 
of classic history. Childe Harold is a series of travel 
sketches, rendered in splendid descriptive verse. 

Any final opinion of Byron's true poetic quality must 
be determined by comparison with Shelley, whom he 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 11 

long overshadowed. Shelley, ''the most truly spiritual 
of all English poets," says John Morley, " was immeasur- 
ably superior to Byron in all the rarer qualities of the 
specially poetic mind." He has none of the ''psychological 
delicacy, subtle moral traits, opening glimpses into un- 
observed depths of character," found in Shelley and other 
great poets. "Byron has composed no piece which may 
compare with Prometheus, or The Cenci, any more than 
Rubens may take his place with Raphael." This is a 
luminous and convincing comparison. The critic must 
choose between the powerful, flaming, sensuous art of 
Rubens and Byron and the delicate, perfected, spiritual art 
of Raphael and Shelley. 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

The Castle of Chillon stands at the eastern extremity 
of Lake Geneva, one mile and a half from Montreux. 
A little beyond the castle to the south, the river Rhone 
empties into the lake, and in the same direction rise the 
snowcapped domes of the Bernese Alps. It is a picturesque 
and beautiful spot. 

In June, 1816, Byron and Shelley, who were then living 
near each other not far from Geneva, made an excursion 
by boat around the lake. They visited Castle Chillon and 
were naturally much impressed by its cavernous dungeons 
and their historic associations. This is Shelley's account 
of the visit, given in a letter to his friend Peacock: — 

"We passed on to the castle of Chillon, and visited 
its dungeons and towers. These prisons are excavated 
below the lake; the principal dungeon is supported by 
seven columns, whose branching capitals support the roof. 
Close to the very walls the lake is eight hundred feet 
deep; iron rings are fastened to these columns, and on 
them were engraven a multitude of names, partly those 
of visitors, and partly doubtless of the prisoners, of whom 



12 INTRODUCTION 

now no memory remains, and who thus beguiled a soli- 
tude which they had long ceased to feel. One date was 
as ancient as 1670 . . . Close to this long and lofty 
dungeon was a narrow cell, and beyond it one larger and 
far more lofty and dark, supported upon two unorna- 
mented arches. Across one of these arches was a beam, 
now black and rotten, on which prisoners were hung in 
secret. I never saw a monument more terrible of that 
cold and inhuman tyranny, which it had been the delight 
of man to exercise over man. . . . The gendarme who 
conducted us over this castle told us that there was an 
opening to the lake, by means of a secret spring connected 
with which the whole dungeon might be filled with water 
before the prisoners could possibly escape." 

The travelers were delayed by rain two days at Ouchy, 
and there Byron wrote The Prisoner of Chillon. The poem 
at first bore the subtitle, ''A Fable," indicating appar- 
ently the poet's purpose to make a symboHc presentation 
of religious persecution. The facts of the poem are widely 
at variance with history. Of the real Bonivard, Byron 
had only a guide-book knowledge; but, fact or fiction, 
the story was enough to inflame his passion for Hberty. 
In a notice prefixed to the poem he said: ''When this 
poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the 
history of Bonivard, or I should have endeavored to 
dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage 
and his virtues." 

The real Frangois Bonivard was born in Seyssel, Swit- 
zerland, in 1493, and died in Geneva in 1570. His child- 
hood was spent in the monastery of St. Victor, near Gen- 
eva, of which his uncle was prior. He was a student at 
the universities of Turin, Freiburg, and Strasburg, and 
in the manner of students of that age spent more time in 
riotous pleasures than in study. On the death of his 
uncle he inherited the priory of St. Victor, but had the 
conscience to refuse to take orders. He now took up his 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 13 

residence in Geneva, and joined a little band of patriots 
in their effort to throw off the yoke of the Duke of Savoy. 
He also had his own private quarrel with the Duke over 
matters connected with his monastery. In 1518, the 
doctrines of the Reformation began to spread in Geneva, 
and Bonivard, although prior of St. Victor, zealously joined 
the predecessors of Calvin in their reform movement. 
But he did not reform himself and was several times 
reproved by the clergy for his '' levity, gluttony," and 
other vices. After being forced by the Duke to give up 
his monastery, he was treacherously seized and imprisoned, 
but was released through the efforts of the Bishop of 
Geneva, who had a warm place in his heart for ''jolly 
Frangois." In 1530 he set out to visit his dying mother 
at Seyssel, having obtained a safe conduct for the journey; 
but snares were laid for him by the Duke's men, and he 
was seized and placed in Castle Chillon. At first he was 
comfortably lodged, but one day the Duke visited him 
and was treated with humorous disrespect. ''I thought," 
says Bonivard, "that as I was already in prison and not 
too well treated I could allow myself the joy of having a 
little fun; but I paid dearly for it, as I was taken down 
two stories below into a damp locality where for six years 
I suffered no end of discomforts." In 1536 he was re- 
leased by the Bernese, who invaded the Pays de Vaud, 
and carried him in triumph to Geneva. The city gave him 
a house and a public office for his support, but imposed 
the condition that "he should live according to the laws 
of decency and honesty," a condition that he did not any 
too well observe. 

The Prisoner of Chillon and Other Poems, published in 
1816, was reviewed by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review 
and by Scott in the Quarterly. Jeffrey pronounced the 
poem "sweet and touching." "Even our admiration is 
at last swallowed up in a most painful feeling of pity and 
of wonder. It is impossible to mistake these for fictitious 



14 INTRODUCTION 

sorrows, conjured up for the purpose of poetical effect." 
Scott thus commented on the poem: — ''The object of 
the poem is to consider captivity in the abstract and to 
mark its effects in gradually chilling the mental powers 
as it benumbs and freezes the animal frame, until the 
unfortunate victim becomes, as it were, a part of his 
dungeon, and identified with his chains. . . . This 
singular poem is more powerful than pleasing. It is the 
more disagreeable as affording human hope no anchor to 
rest upon, and describing the sufferer, though a man of 
talents and virtues, as altogether inert and powerless 
under his accumulated sufferings. Yet as a picture, how- 
ever gloomy the coloring, it may rival any which Lord 
Byron has drawn; nor is it possible to read it without 
a sinking of the heart corresponding with that which he 
describes the victim to have suffered." 

"This poem," says Professor Hales, ''cannot be pro- 
nounced a masterpiece; to say nothing of several lapses 
and carelessnesses, there is a want of concentration in it; 
the purpose of the poem is somewhat vacillating. But 
it is a capital specimen of Byron's vigor and verve. The 
passage in which he tries his power of language to the 
utmost and displays best how remarkable that power 
was, is Stanza IX." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

John Nichol: Life of Byron (English Men of Letters Series). 

Hon. Roden Noel: Life of Byron (Great Writers Series). 

Thomas Moore: Letters and Journal of Lord Byron, with 
Notices of His Life. 

Karl Elze: Lord Byron (Translated from the German). 

John Cordy Jeaffreson: The Real Lord Byron. 

Leslie Stephen : Article on Byron in Dictionary of National 
Biography. 

Theodore Watts-Dunton: Article on Byron in Chambers's 
Cyclopedia of English Literature. 

William Minto: Article on Byron in Encyclopcedia Britan- 
nica. 

Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, 2d Series; Selec- 
tions from Byron (Golden Treasur}^ Series). 

John Morley: Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I. 

H. Taine: History of English Literature. 

Algernon C. Swinburne: Miscellanies, and Essays and 
Studies. 

Lord Macaulay: Essays. 

George E. Woodberry: Makers of Literature. 

J. A. Symonds: In Ward's English Poets, Vol. IV. 

G. Mazzini: Essays — Byron and Goethe. 

Paul Elmer More: Introduction to the Cambridge edi- 
tion of Byron's Poems. 

William P. Trent: Authority of Criticism — The Byron 
Revival. 

Edward Bliss Reed: English Lyrical Poetry, pp. 402-407. 

William Morton Payne: The Greater English Poets of the 
Nineteenth Century. 

Sir Walter Scott: Review of The Prisoner of Chilton. 
Quarterly Review, October, 1816. 

Francis Jeffrey: Review of The Prisoner of Chillon. Edin- 
burgh Review, December, 1816. 

The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. XII. 

15 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

My hair is gray, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white ^ 
In a single night, 
As men's ^ have grown from sudden fears: 
My Hmbs are bowed, though not with toil, 

But rusted with a vile repose. 
For they have been a dungeon's spoil. 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are banned,^ and barred — forbidden fare; ^ 
But this ^ was for my father's faith ^ 
I suffered chains and courted death; 
That father perished at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake; 
And for the same his lineal race 
In darkness found a dwelling-place; 
We were seven ^ — who now are one, 

Six in youth, and one in age, 
Finished as they had begun, 

Proud of Persecution's rage; 

17 



18 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

One ^ in fire, and two in field, 
Their belief with blood have sealed; - 
Dying as their father died. 
For the God ^ their foes denied; 
Three were in a dungeon ^ cast, 
Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould, ^ 
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old. 
There are seven columns, massy and gray. 
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 
A sunbeam ^ which hath lost its way, 
And through the crevice and the cleft 
Of the thick wall is fallen and left; 
Creeping o'er the floor so damp. 
Like a marsh's meteor lamp : ^ 
And in each pillar ^ there is a ring, 

And in each ring there is a chain; 
That iron is a cankering thing. 

For in these limbs its teeth remain. 
With marks that will not wear away. 
Till I have done with this new day,^ 
Which now is painful to these eyes, 
Which have not seen the sun to rise 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 19 

For years ^ — I cannot count them o'er, 
I lost their long and heavy score 
When my last brother drooped and died, 
And I lay living by his side. 

They chained us each to a column stone,^ 
And we were three — yet, each alone: 
We could not move a single pace, 
We could not see each other's face, 
But with that pale and livid light 
That made us strangers in our sight: 
And thus together — yet apart. 
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart, 
'Twas still some solace, in the dearth 
Of the pure elements of earth, 
To hearken to each other's speech. 
And each turn comforter to each 
With some new hope, or legend old, 
Or song heroically bold; 
But even these at length grew cold. 
Our voices took a dreary tone, 
An echo of the dungeon-stone, 

A grating sound — not full and free 
As they of yore were wont to be: 



20 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

It might be fancy ^ — but to me 
They never sounded hke our own. 

I was the eldest of the three, 
And to uphold and cheer the rest 
I ought 2 to do — and did — my best 
And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved, 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him — with eyes as blue as heaven. 
For him my soul was sorely moved : 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such bird in such a nest; 
For he was beautiful as day — 
(When day was beautiful to me 
As to young eagles, being free) — 
A polar ^ day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer's gone. 

Its sleepless summer of long light, 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun! 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay. 
With tears for nought but others' ills, 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 21 

Unless he could assuage the woe 
Which he abhorred to view below.^ 

The other was as pure of mind,^ 
But formed to combat with his kind; 
Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,^ 
And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy; — but not in chains to pine: 
His spirit withered with their clank, 

I saw it silently dechne — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine: 
But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those rehcs of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter ^ of the hills. 

Had followed there the deer and wolf; 

To him this dungeon was a gulf. 
And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

Lake Leman ^ lies by Chillon's walls: 
A thousand ^ feet in depth below 
Its massy ^ waters meet and flow; 
Thus much the fathom-line ^ was sent 
From Chillon's snow-white battlement, 



22 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

Which round about the wave enthrals: 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave 
Below the surface of the lake 
The dark vault lies wherein we lay, 
We heard it ripple night and day; 

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; 
And I have felt the winter's spray 
Wash through the bars when winds were 

high 
And wanton ^ in the happy sky; 

And then the very rock hath rocked,^ 

And I have felt it shake, unshocked, 
Because I could have smiled to see 
The death that would have set me free. 

I said my nearer brother pined, 
I said his mighty heart declined, 
He loathed and put away his food; 
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude, 
For we were used to hunter's fare, 
And for the like had little care: ^ 
The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat, 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 23 

Our bread was such as captives' tears 
Have moistened many a thousand years, 
Since man first pent his fellow-men 
Like brutes within an iron den; 
But what were these to us or him? 
These wasted not his heart or limb; 
My brother's soul was of that mould 
Which in a palace had grown ^ cold, 
Had his free breathing been denied 
The range of the steep mountain's side; 
But why delay the truth?— he died. 
I saw, and could not hold his head, 
Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead — 
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 
He died — and they unlocked his chain, 
And scooped for him a shallow grave 
Even from the cold earth of our cave. 
I begged them, as a boon,, to lay 
His corse in dust whereon the day 
Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 
But then within my brain it wrought, 
That even in death his freeborn breast 
In such a dungeon could not rest. 



24 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

I might have spared my idle prayer — 
They coldly laughed — and laid him there: 
The flat and turfless earth above 
The being we so much did love; 
His empty chain above it leant, 
Such murder's fitting monument! 



But he,^ the favorite and the flower, 

Most cherished since his natal hour, 

His mother's image in fair face, 

The infant love of all his race, 

His martyred father's dearest thought. 

My latest care, for whom I sought 

To hoard my life, that his might be 

Less wretched now, and one day free; 

He, too, who yet had held un tired 

A spirit natural or inspired — 

He, too, was struck, and day by day 

Was withered on the stalk away. 

Oh God ! it is a fearful thing 

To see the human soul take wing 

In any shape, in any mood: 

IVe seen it rushing forth in blood, 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 25 

IVe seen it on the breaking ocean 

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 

IVe seen the sick and ghastly bed 

Of sin delirious with its dread : 

But these were horrors — this was woe 

Unmixed with such — but sure and slow: 

He faded, and so calm and meek, 

So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 

So tearless, yet so tender — kind, 

And grieved for those ^ he left behind; 

With all the while a cheek whose bloom 

Was as a mockery of the tomb. 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 

As a departing rainbow's ray ^ — 

An eye of most transparent light. 

That almost made the dungeon bright, 

And not a word of murmur — not 

A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 

A little talk of better days, 

A little hope my own to raise, 

For I was sunk in silence — lost 

In this last loss, of all the most; 

And then the sighs he would suppress 

Of fainting nature's feebleness. 



26 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

More slowly drawn, grew less and less, 

I listened, but I could not hear — 

I called, for I was wild with fear; 

I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread 

Would not be thus admonished; 

I called and thought I heard a sound — 

I burst my chain with one strong bound, 

And rushed to him: — I found him not, 

I only stirred in this black spot, 

I only lived — I only drew 

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; * 

The last — the sole — the dearest link 

Between me and the eternal brink, 

Which bound me to my failing race, 

Was broken in this fatal place. 

One on the earth, and one beneath — 

My brothers — both had ceased to breathe: 

I took that hand which lay so still, 

Alas! my own was full as chill; 

I had not strength to stir, or strive. 

But felt that I was still alive — 

A frantic feeling, when we know 

That what we love shall ne'er be so. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 27 

I know not why 

I could not die,i 
I had no earthly hope but faith, 
And that forbade a selfish death. 



What next befell me then and there 
I know not well — I never knew — 
First came the loss of light, and air, 

And then of darkness too : 
I had no thought, no feeling — none^ 
Among the stones I stood a stone. 
And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 
As shrubless crags within the mist; ^ 
For all was blank, and bleak, and gray; 
It was not night — it was not day; 
It was not even the dungeon-light. 
So hateful to my heavy sight. 
But vacancy absorbing space. 
And fixedness — without a place : 
There were no stars — no earth — no time — 
No check — no change — no good — no crime — 
But silence, and a stirless breath 
Which neither was of life nor death; 



28 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

A sea of stagnant idleness, 

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 



A light 1 broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird; 
It ceased, and then it came again, 

The sweetest song ear ever heard, 
And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Ran over with the glad surprise. 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery; 
But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track; 
I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 
But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perched, as fond and tame, 

And tamer than upon the tree; 
A lovely bird with azure wings. 
And song that said a thousand things, 
And seemed to say them all for me! 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 29 

I never saw its like before, 

I ne'er shall see its likeness more : 

It seemed like me to want a mate, 

But was not half so desolate, 

And it was come to love me when 

None lived to love me so again, 

And cheering from my dungeon's brink. 

Had brought me back to feel and think. 

I know not if it late were free. 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 
But knowing well captivity. 

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise; 
For — Heaven forgive that thought! the while 
Which made me both to weep and smile; 
I sometimes deemed that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me; 
But then at last away it flew, 
And then 'twas mortal well I knew. 
For he would never thus have flown, 
And left me twice so doubly lone, — 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud, 
Lone — as a solitary cloud. 



30 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

A single cloud on a sunny day, 
While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere, 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 

A kind of change came in my fate. 

My keepers grew compassionate; 

I know not what had made them so, 

They were inured to sights of woe, 

But so it was : — my broken chain 

With links unfastened did remain, 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side, 

And up and down, and then athwart. 

And tread it over every part; 

And round the pillars one by one. 

Returning where my walk begun, 

Avoiding only, as I trod. 

My brothers' graves without a sod; 

For if I thought with heedless tread. 

My step profaned their lowly bed. 

My breath came gaspingly and thick. 

And my crushed heart fell ^ blind and sick. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 31 

I made a footing in the wall/ 

It was not therefrom to escape, 
For I had buried one and all 

Who loved me in a human shape; 
And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me : 
No child— no sire — no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery; 
I thought of this, and I was glad, 
For thought of them had made me mad; 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barred windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high, 
The quiet of a loving eye.' 



2 



I saw them— and they were the same. 
They were not changed like me in frame; 
I saw their thousand years of snow 
On high— their wide long lake below. 
And the blue ^ Rhone in fullest flow; 
I heard the torrents ^ leap and gush 
O'er channelled rock and broken bush; 
I saw the white- walled distant town,^ 
And whiter sails go skimming down; 



32 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

And then there was a httle isle/ 
Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view; 
A small green isle, it seemed no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
But in it there were three tall trees, 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, 
And by it there were waters flowing, 
And on it there were young flowers grow- 
ing, 

Of gentle breath and hue. 
The fish swam by the castle wall, 
And they seemed joyous each and all; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seemed to fly. 
And then new tears came in my eye, 
And I felt troubled — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain; 
And when I did descend again. 
The darkness of my dim abode 
Fell on me as a heavy load; 
It was as is a new-dug grave. 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 33 

And yet my glance, too much oppressed, 

Had almost need of such a rest. 

It might be months, or years, or days, 

I kept no count — I took no note, 
I had no hope my eyes to raise, 

And clear them of their dreary mote; 
At last men came to set me free, 

I asked nou why, and recked not where, 
It was at length the same to me. 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 

I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last, 
And all my bonds aside were cast. 
These heavy walls ^ to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my own! 
And half I felt as they were come ^ 
To tear me from a second home : 
With spiders I had friendship made. 
And watched them in their sullen trade, ^ 
Had seen the mice by moonlight play, 
And why should I feel less than they? 
We were all inmates of one place. 
And I, the monarch of each race. 



34 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

Had power to kill — ^yet, strange to tell! 
In quiet we had learned to dwell; ^ 
My very chains and I grew friends, 
So much a long commimion tends 
To make us what we are : — even I 
Regained my freedom with a sighr 



SONNET ON CHILLON 

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art; 

For there thy habitation is the heart^ 
The heart which love of thee alone can bind; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless 
gloom. 

Their country conquers with their martyr- 
dom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 
Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place. 

And thy sad floor an altar — for 'twas trod. 
Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 
By Bonivard! — May none those marks efface! 

For they appeal from tyranny to God. 



NOTES 

17, 1. White: Many instances are recorded of hair turned 
white by terror, fear, or intense grief. When Marie An- 
tionette, Queen of France, came from prison to the guillotine, 
her hair was nearly white. 

2. Men's have grown: Here Byron's grammar is made to 
accommodate the sense. We cannot say men's hairs, but can 
get his meaning by saying the hair of men (in many well known 
cases) has grown. 

3. Banned: The New English Dictionary gives this as the 
first instance of the use of the verb ''to ban " in the sense of 
prohibit. Usually it means to curse, to anathematize, in a 
religious sense. 

4. Fare : Here it is passage; more usually, the price of passage. 

5. This : Is there any advantage here in the use of this for it? 

6. For my father's faith: Bonivard's imprisonment was for 
poUtical rather than religious reasons. Such martyrdoms, 
however, were usually religious, and, moreover, this explana- 
tion naturally appealed to the prejudices of Byron and Shelley. 

7. We were seven : The real Bonivard had only two brothers. 
Neither was ever imprisoned with him. 

18, 1. One in fire, etc. : That is, one in the fire of martyrdom, 
and two in the field of battle. 

2. Have sealed: Examine the tense here. 

3. The God their foes denied: Each party in the religious 
wars had its own conception of God, to which it held tena- 
ciously — willing even to die for its opinivin. 

4. Dungeon: The dungeon was originally the principal 
tower of a castle, used as a lookout and commanding a wide 
view. The name was finally applied to the dark and barred 

37 



38 NOTES 

room at the bottom of the tower, in which prisoners were 
confined. The dungeon of Chillon, however, is a fairly spa- 
cious and well-Hghted room, as it appears to-day. 

5. Seven pillars of gothic mould: Note the definiteness of 
each object mentioned in this stanza, as if pointed out by a 
guide, and each object described by some simple and strong 
adjective. There are just seven columns, each with a ring, 
each ring with a chain, and the chains are rust-covered and 
so have "teeth" that are a "cankering thing." Besides, the 
number seven is a sacred number. At the end of the stanza 
this minute definiteness is changed for vagueness in order to en- 
large the sense of time. The effect of this introductory de- 
scription is to produce a shiver, as if one were entering a cold 
damp crypt, where only dead things are visible. The meter 
is smooth and subdued, as one's voice is naturally subdued in 
such places. 

6. A sunbeam: The effect of the sunbeams from the narrow 
slit-like windows, at different hours of the day, as they reach 
into the remoter parts of the dungeon, is one of the notable 
sights of the castle. Says the guide-book: — "The sun's light 
passes by reflection from the surface of the lake up to the roof, 
transmitting partly also the blue color of the water." "Dur- 
ing the afternoon the wall assumes a much deeper and warmer 
coloring, and the blue transparency of the morning disappears; 
but at eventide, after the sun has set behind the Jura, the 
scene changes to the deep glow of fire." 

7. Marsh's meteor lamp: Will-o'-the-wisp, ignis fatuus, 
Jack o' Lantern and Friar Rush are different names for the 
strange light seen over marshy places, by which the devil was 
supposed to lead people astray. Byron has, in Manfred, 
"the wisp on the morass," and Scott has, in Marmion IV, 1, 
"Lantern led by Friar Rush." 

8. In each pillar, etc. : Byron is not exact — probably did not 
intend to be. Only one pillar now bears its ring, and near this 
pillar the pavement is worn away by the feet of Bonivard, 
the traveler is told. On one of the pillars Byron's name may 



NOTES 39 

be seen, among hundreds of others, including those of Victor 
Hugo and George Sand. 

9. This new day: Bonivard has just been released, and is 
beginning life anew. 

19, 1. For years, etc. : He had been imprisoned only six years. 
The intensity of the horror is increased by lengthening the 
period indefinitely. 

2. Column stone: Not a very felicitious substitute for a 
colujnn of stone. 

20, 1. It might be fancy: The "fancy" is based on fact, 
as those will testify who have visited deep caverns. The 
poet, of course, is aiming at a weird or supernatural effect. 

2. Ought: Ought is really the past tense of the verb owe, 
but here means, it was my duty to do. 

3. Polar day: A day half a year long; that is, there is but 
one day and one night in the year at the poles. 

21, 1. Below: What does Byron mean by this word? 

2. Pure of mind: The eldest brother dwells upon the qualities 
of his two brothers, as he had done so long in the dungeon, 
in the silent company of their dead bodies. In this stanza 
he shows why the "nearer brother" died first. He was a 
hunter, with the heart of a soldier, who could endure any 
hardship better than the loss of his freedom. His soul was one 
of action, and could not be sustained by thought and faith, 
like the soul of the eldest brother. 

3. Had stood: Would have stood. In line 8, page 21 the 
subject, mood, is understood. 

4. A hunter: The imprisoned hunter thinks of himself as 
of one who has fallen into a chasm, while hunting, from which 
he cannot climb out with fettered feet. The "worst of ills" 
under such circumstances. 

5. Lake Leman: The original Roman name (Lemanus) of 
Lake Geneva. The lake is forty-five miles long, varying in 
breadth from one and a half to nine miles. It is a beautiful 
sheet of water. In Childe Harold Byron says : 

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face. 



40 NOTES 

6. A thousand feet: The guide-books say eight hundred. 
Either figure is sufficiently marvelous. As the visitor stands 
in the dungeon, he hears the heavy waves beating constantly 
against the walls of the castle. 

7. Massy: Here (as in line 9, page 18) large in bulk and 
strength. This form was always used by Shakespeare and 
Milton instead of massive. In // Penseroso Gothic pillars are 
described as massy-proof. 

8. Fathom-line : The line used on shipboard for sounding, or 
measuring the depth of water. Seamen measure by fathoms 
(six feet). 

22, 1. Wanton: Here an adjective, meaning wild, unruly, 
unrestrained, referring to winds. The line suggests contrast 
with the unhappy conditions within the barred windows. 

2. Rock hath rocked: The alliteration in these two lines is a 
rather ludicrous break in the smooth solemnity of the pris- 
oner's narrative. Either Bonivard or Byron must have been 
lacking in the sense of humor at the moment. 

3. Had little care: That is, they had little objection to 
coarse food. It was in mind, not in body, that they suffered. 

23, 1. Had grown: Would have grown cold. 

24, 1. But he: Jeffrey said, in his review of the poem: "The 
gentle decay and gradual extinction of the youngest life is the 
most beautiful passage in the poem," 

25, 1. Those he left behind: J. W. Hales says of this line: 
"There is much delicacy in this plural. By such a fanciful 
multiplying of the survivors, the elder brother prevents self- 
intrusion; himself and his loneliness are, as it were, kept out 
of sight, and forgotten. There is a not unlike sensitiveness in 
the Scotch phrase 'them that's awa' of some single lost one. 
The grief is softened by vagueness." 

2. Departing rainbow's ray: This effective simile has be- 
come a familiar quotation. It not only describes most beauti- 
fully the gradual fading away of the boy's life, but summarizes 
and symbolizes the extreme tenderness of the whole stanza, 
which is Byron's masterpiece of pathos. The length of this 



NOTES 41 

stanza is noteworthy. It is almost a complete tragedy — 
which reaches its climax at line 15, page 26. 

26, 1. Dungeon-dew: The moist air of the dungeon. 

27, 1. Die: Similarly in The Ancient Mariner, Part IV, 262: 
"And yet I could not die." 

2. Mist: Byron had seen such pictures in Scotland, and in 
Switzerland, where the barrenness and desolation on the 
mountain tops add to the gloom of the mist. 

28, 1. A light: The prisoner is awakened from his torpor 
and restored to sanity by hearing a bird's oong, as the Ancient 
Mariner is restored from a similar condition by watching the 
playful water-snakes. {Ancient Mariner, Pt. IV, 272-291.) 
This use of the bird's song to restore the prisoner's shattered 
consciousness is the finest imaginative touch in the poem, 
seldom if ever surpassed by Byron in his use of nature. The 
remedial and consoling influences of nature, upon which 
Wordsworth dwelt so persistently in his poetry, were hardly 
known to Byron by experience. This passage is as celebrated 
as the passage in which Shakespeare heals the distracted brain 
of King Lear by the ministration of gentle music. 

30, 1. Fell blind, etc.: This is often incorrectly printed 
felt, etc. The word is used as in the phrase ''fell ill." 

31, 1. The wall. The visit of the bird has drawn the prison- 
er's thoughts to outward nature, and stirred his curiosity. 
He looks upon the familiar and happy scene of nature, and the 
contrast with his own misery deepens his hopelessness and 
gloom. Wordsworth would have ended the poem with cheer 
and hope, drawn from the glimpse of nature's beauty, where 
Byron ends it with black despair. This particular effect 
was what would have happened to Byron, rather than what 
must necessarily happen. In other words, Byron's hero here, 
as everywhere in his poetry, is sketched from his own mirror. 

31, 2. The quiet of a loving eye: "A thoroughly Words- 
worthian line," says Hales. There are many such suggestions 
of Wordsworth's influence in the poem. The reader is also 
often reminded of Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. 



42 NOTES 

3. Blue Rhone: Byron was thinking of the Rhone as he 
had seen it rushing through the bridges of Geneva. When it 
flows into the lake, it is creamy white or grayish in color, like 
all glacier streams. Shelley noted the facts more accurately: 
"The turpid waters mixed with those of the lake, but mixed 
with them unwillingly." 

4. The torrents: A mountain brook falls down the cliff 
near the castle. 

5. Distant town: Villeneuve, one mile and a half away. 

32, 1. A little isle: Called He de Paix, thirty paces long and 
twenty wide. It still bears the three trees. Byron thus wrote 
of it: "Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, 
not far from Chillon, is a very small island, the only one I 
could perceive in my voyage round and over the lake, within 
its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above 
three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a pecu- 
liar effect upon the eye." 

33, 1. These heavy walls: It is interesting to associate 
with these lines the famous passage from Lovelace's lyric, 
To Althea from prison: 

Stone walls do not a prison make 

Nor iron bars a cage; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for an hermitage. 

2. As they were come : As if they were come. 

3. Trade: Habitual occupation. 

34, 1. To dwell: After this line followed in the original 
MS. two tentative lines of a red republican character, which 
Byron wisely cut out: 

Nor slew I of my subjects one — 

What sovereign/ hath -^'^^hath Hone? 

2. A sigh: Tamed birds will return to the cage when set 
free after long terms of imprisonment; prisoners will return 
to the prison, when liberated, being like lost children in an 



NOTES 43 

unfamiliar world. So far Byron's conclusion is justified; but 
the last line is hardly correct. Where there is consciousness 
of freedom, there is no sigh of regret. 

SONNET ON CHILLON 

Watts-Dunton declared this sonnet to be Byron's highest 
reach in serious poetry, but raised the query at once, whether 
in reality he loved liberty. How could the sentiment of this 
sound be his own, since he was an excessive admirer of Napo- 
leon, the tyrant who trampled down the liberties of all Europe? 
It is a hard question, to be answered only in accordance with 
one's view of Byron's character. 



TOPICS AND QUESTIONS 

1. Give an outline of the main facts of Byron's life. 

2. His relations with his mother (consult biographies). 

3. Give illustrations (from biographies) of Byron's pride. 

4. Make a clear statement of the conflicting opinions (1) 
upon Byron's personal character and (2) upon his value as a 
poet. 

5. Compare Byron with Shelley, (1) in respect to personal 
character, (2) in respect to the qualities of their poetry. 

6. What appears to be Byron's purpose in The Prisoner of 
Chillonf 

7. Explain Byron's probable thought in calling the poem 
''a fable." 

8. Compare the two with the historic Bonivard, 

9. What effect is produced on the mind by this poem? 

10. Do the pathos and tenderness in the poem seem 
genuine? 

11. Is the poem a product of imagination or of observation? 
Discuss Taine's criticism. 

12. What is meant by the "pure elements of earth," in 
line 14, page 19? 

13. Discuss the description of a polar day, lines 16-19, 
page 20. Is the simile a good one? 

14. Explain lines 4, 5, page 27. 

15. Select the finest simile in the poem. 

16. Explain the improvement made by Byron in line 
17, page 31. "I saw their thousand years of snow." 

17. Point out some of the "lapses and carelessness" to 
which Professor Hales refers. 

18. Is there any passage in the poem that shows a delicate 
appreciation of nature? 

44 



TOPICS AND QUESTIONS 45 

19. Find similarities between this poem and The Ancient 
Mariner. 

20. Describe the meter of the poem. What other poems 
by Byron are written in this meter? What poets had used it 
before Byron? Is it a good meter for narrative poems? 

21. Compare this poem with Christobel, especially, with 
reference to the meter, and note whether Byron was influenced 
by Coleridge. (Christobel was published the same year, 1816, 
but Byron had read the poem in MS. and warmly praised it in 
a letter to his publisher). 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 

By JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, Ph.D. 

591 pages, i2mo, cloth, fully illustrated. 
Price, $1.50 

This book furnishes the historical, biographical, and critical 
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CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 
New York Chicago 



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